Why Do I Do This?
by hayley.moses
Summary: Welcome to Hetalia Academy! You, Alfred Jones, are in love with the Student Council president. While trying to win over his affections, you are also working with your brother to hide what you've done to yourself from the world.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

A/N: Well, this adventure started (emphasis on started) as me attempting a SwissLiech kind of thing, but merged itself in an UsUk/Franada thing. Good luck! And uhm, reviews are great.

(also, I apologize for the not entirely too spectacular summary, I have no idea where this is going to wind up to be honest)

* * *

"Three years! Three fucking years, and now this!" I mutter, pacing back and forth around my room, fingers pulling at the hair on the sides of my head, the _fuck _is wrong with me! Hadn't I learnt the first two years how hard this was to hide? My eyes flick over at the little red lines on my wrist.

I could do this. I could hide it.

It only took a few days for them to heal... Or was it weeks? I breathe in heavily and sigh. There are only a few days until school is over, then it would be easier. Until then, what in _hell _could I wear?

It's almost summer time, so wearing sweatshirts is out of the question. Maybe this would have been easier if I had done it on my ankle like I thought I should have. But.. I pull off my glasses and rub my eyes with the palm of my hand. What would Arthur say about this? I mean, it's not like I can avoid him or anything. School council duties, and the fact that... we have.. all the same classes... together. Fuck. Then again, its not like _he _would have any reason to be interested in _my _life or anything. It isn't as though we're dating or anything. Or that he likes me. No matter how much I want those things, they won't ever happen. And I am painfully aware of this.

Anyways, I could make this work. I glance over at my alarm-clock. 7:45 am.

"Shit!" the student council meeting is scheduled to start in fifteen minutes, and here I am standing around in my underwear. I go over to my laundry basket, pulling out bits and pieces of my uniform. White, long-sleeved button up shirt; coal grey slacks and dull golden-yellow sweater vest. I trip and fall over my messenger bag twice while trying to pull on my pants. Finally, ankle socks. Fancy shoes. Dressed.

I grab my keys, phone, and bag, making my way to the door, pausing to stare at myself in the stand up mirror. Messy short dusty blond hair with a stubborn cowlick sticking up at the front, blue eyes stuck behind rectangular glasses, tall and lean (in a muscular way), with long arms and legs. That's me. I don't look any different than I did yesterday. It feels like it though.

oOo

"Alfred! Alfred are listening to me?"

I look up from my doughnut right into Arthur's scowling face. Arthur Kirkland. Student council president and (in my opinion) the handsomest boy in school. His arms are crossed and emerald green eyes filled to the brim with early morning frustration.

"I... Yes." No. I was too busy thinking about what it would be like to go out on a date with him. Too busy getting my hopes up.

"Do you have the papers I asked you for?"

"The ones with the figures for next year's budget?" His eyes narrow down at me, clearly saying _What other papers could I be asking for you git? _

I clear my throat nervously, glancing down the table towards my friend Kiku, who's looking at me with eyebrows raised and an amused expression.

"Yes, I have them. Wait a sec... please." Whilst digging through my bag looking for the folder with all the student council stuff in it I can hear our secretary Feliciano Vargas, asking about the cooking classes next year. Something to do with the words "ve" "pasta" and "Lovi".

Lovi... Where have I heard that name before? While trying to figure out where exactly I had heard that name before, a pair of black shoes nestled under coal grey slacks enter my vision. Quickly followed by two very large green eyes. "Are you having trouble finding them _Alfred?" _I gulp.

"Er-n-no, they're in here somewhere..." I mutter trying to hide the red flush spreading across my face. A few seconds later I produce a thin, green folder with the words STUDENT COUNCIL STUFF written across the front. I sit up quickly, smacking my head into something hard and bony.

"Ouch!"

"Jones you git!" I look up to see Arthur rubbing his jaw, which is turning bright red and looking like a nasty bruise would magically appear at any second. My face is starting to burn it's so red. I'm tempted to get up and run screaming down the hallway, getting as far away from this giant quagmire I created as is humanly possible but I can't. Not until I get the papers to him. I stand up and practically shout "The papers are in here sir! I just realized I had something very important to do just this second it's very urgent and I have to go right now!" I push the folder to his chest and turn around nearly sprinting down the hallway. Holy fuck. What in the name of all that is holy, is wrong with me? Right when I thought I had made _some _progress with getting Arthur to like me I messed it up. I jump during my inward nightmare when my phone goes off in my pocket.

_Mattie: what did you do this time? Francis just texted me saying you pretty much sprinted out of the student council meeting._

_Alfred: I fucked everything up okay? _

_Mattie: where are you? _

I look up to find myself in the commons, had I really gone that far?

_Alfred: I'm in the commons_

_Mattie: On my way_

Dammit! Now Mattie was getting involved. I mean, he's my brother and he's cool and as great as a brother can be but, really this is something I did to myself. Why oh why can't I just be a normal person? Sometimes, being Alfred Jones really sucks. I sigh, and look around. School feels different at the end of the year. I mean, it just feels so.. _empty. _I take in a deep breath and sigh for what feels to be the one hundredth time today. I'm leaning up against the wall when I finally hear Mattie's footsteps coming from the math class hallway.

"Alfred?" his voice is quiet, and kind of soft like he's testing the waters.

"Over here Mattie." I watch him as his head perks up and he starts to walk over to me, looking sort of.. sad. I don't know why he would, I mean, this is my mess. Unless he feels _bad _for me but no, he wouldn't. He couldn't. Looking into his eyes, which are a violet kind of blue, it's really quite obvious that he's worried about me. He really does look exactly like me, which makes me feel bad sometimes, since he's constantly being mistaken for me. My poor shy, quiet, little brother. I really don't understand how people get us confused, Mattie's quiet, shy and sensitive and his eyes and hair are almost completely different. His eyes being darker, and hair being longer and straighter. As opposed to me, I mean, I'm loud, and energetic and maybe sort of kind of conceited... Plus, he's skinny in a different way than I am. He's just sort of.. skinny. I'm not saying he isn't strong, I mean he beat me up in a bunch of fights when we were little. Silly Canadian.

"Hey, hey, earth to Alfred, what are you thinking about?" I shake my head and properly look at him.

"Oh, I was just thinking about how you used to beat me up when we got into fights as kids."

Mattie sighs in his _my-brother-is-so-hopeless-sometimes _way and looks me straight in the eyes, "Why would you be thinking about that?" I look down at the mismatched tile floor and back up at him again.

"I was wondering why people keep getting us mixed up is all. The people around us must be stupid or something. I mean, we're nothing like each other." I smile at him, the smile is kind of fake and really forced but oh well. Matt smiles back, looks around for a moment and says in a voice barely above a whisper "Come on, let's grab a snack and go out to the field to talk about what happened."

oOo

"Really!? And you just ran out of the room, just like that!" Matt sounds amused at the horrors of this morning. He shakes his head and laughs at me.

"Hey! It wasn't funny! It was really embarrassing! All the progress I had made with Arthur gone! In like, several seconds! So totally not awesome." Matt looks at me and says in a mock shocked voice "Alfred Jones, hero of the world, has declared something as not awesome! Oh me! Oh my! Hell must have frozen over and heaven fell from the sky above!" I punch him, but can't help but laugh. He can become really funny and extroverted when we're alone talking about stuff away from other people.

"Ha ha really funny you jokester." Matt goes quiet and looks at me over his sandwich, violet-blue eyes wide, he looks the same as when we were little kids playing in the woods.

"You really like Arthur don't you?" I look over at him, stunned at his words. Did he know? That I was, am well, y'know. It's like he can sense what I'm thinking. "So, the great Alfred Jones has fallen in love. With a _boy _no less." I look over at him ready to say something sarcastic but, can't bring myself to say anything. He looks genuinely happy for me. Sighing, I open my mouth and look at the sky.

"Well, my dear little brother-"

"Hey! Only by a couple of minutes!" I laugh at his frustration.

"Still older. Anyways, as I was saying. What is your current situation with you and your little froggy Francis Bonnefoy?"

A cute little blush, makes its way across Mattie's face. He opens his mouth and closes it, just to open it again and say in a barely audible voice, "Well, you see, h-he and I, well, uhm, I like him but, I-I.. I'm not sure if he likes me. It _seems _like it, b-but he kind of flirts with everyone."

"So I've noticed." I mumble. "It's not fair that he does that to you y'know, maybe I could-"

"Alfred. I don't want you to do anything, this is my problem alright? Any way, we're both idiots aren't we? Skipping school just to talk about the people we can never have."

I fall back into the grass and sigh, looking up into the glorious blue sky. "Well, m-maybe... It's good to be an idiot sometimes." We sit in silence for a while just staring at the sky, it's been so nice out lately. I wonder.. why haven't we gone out to this place before? We used to go all the time when we first came but recently, we never go. I hear Mattie sigh. Not about me, but just a sigh about life I guess. After a moment he lays down next to me, and laughs. "Welp, it looks like we're just two peas in a little pod. Oh! Remember that one birthday cake we had? The one that was half American flag, and half Canadian flag?" I roll over, Matt looks as though he's kind of far away remembering something dear to him.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Remember what you said after the first bite of your half of the cake?" I think for minute. I remember, very well, but I let him tell me anyways.

"No, I don't. Tell me Mattie." He laughs and looks over at me.

"You took one bite and yelled 'This tastes like freedom! I'm free!' then, you took a handful of cake and smeared it all over my face." I laugh with him this time.

"Oh Mattie, how could I forget, you yelled at me and pushed me face first down in your half and yelled: 'Taste my free health care!' What were we, five?"

That really was a great day. We didn't really know what the free health care thing meant at the time but it didn't matter. Matt gets quiet again and murmurs,

"Yeah, we had just turned five. I still have pictures of our faces covered in frosting. I stole them from Mom after they were developed. She got all angry about it, but blamed it on the camera." I laugh, so that's where those went. I look up at the sky, we must have been out here all day for it to be getting dark like this.

"Hey Mattie..." I get quiet for a minute trying to choose my words carefully. He turns and looks at me ardently, waiting for what I'm about to say. "I, well, you see, yesterday, I was by myself and well, uhm..." I pull up my left shirt sleeve and thrust it over towards his face, covering my eyes with my right arm. In a voice barely above a whisper I say "I'm not proud of it.. I well, I erm.." I sigh and push the words out with one breath. "Ikindofcutmyselfagainit'snotlikeI'mproudofitorany thingitjustsortofhappened."

A finger gently rubs across the little marks. "Well, let's not tell anyone else about this." I sit up staring down my brother. He looks so calm.

"Aren't you going to yell at me? Tell me what I did was bad?" Matt shakes his head. He sits up, leaning against his palms and says gently,

"As long as you're not proud of it, and remember why you stopped in the first place then, you'll be alright."

Those words. _You'll be alright. _I sigh and cover my wrist back up.

"Only if you say so, but, if you're wrong I'm totally going to kick you ass." Matt laughs.

"You'll see Alfred. You're going to be just fine." We look at each other and shake our heads laughing.

"We should definitely come out here again and have another one of these icky mushy-gushy girly bonding moments."

"Definitely."

* * *

A/N: I didn't think it would become so ungodly long. Hurrah for angst and unrequited love! I'm not sure if I'll keep this going or not but! I will try. Anyways! Reviews are great! And I will read them all.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

A/N: This turned out to be ungodly long. Sorry, BUT I proofread the shit out of it to make it fabulous. Again reviews and so on are nice. And, things start to get interesting. Well, sort of. Anyways! Have fun reading.

* * *

"Get up." I roll over and look at the clock sleepily. Six in the morning. On a Saturday.

"Mattie, I'm not doing laundry at six in the morning. Especially on a _Saturday _for Chris-sakes."

"Get up and explain yourself." I sit up and rub my eyes. That doesn't sound like Mattie's soft voice. No, it sounds harsh, and kind of frustrated. Foot steps come over to my bed and suddenly a pair of green eyes, _huge _eyebrows and messy blond hair is thrust towards my face.

Holy fucking fuck. Why, explain to me why Arthur fucking Kirkland is in my room staring me down at six in the morning. In _my _room no less. It takes me a second to process this.

_Oh my god he's in my room he's in my room, did he see my arm while I was rubbing my face? How long has he been here? Fucking fuck! _I gaze at him blearily.

"What do you want at six in the morning?" The Student Council president looks at me with an exasperated sigh, standing up and says (in a less than pleasant voice)

"I want you to explain yourself." It's my turn to sigh now.

"Explain what?" I hope I sound confused, because I know exactly what he's going on about and have no words for my actions. I glance over at his jaw and notice _massive purpling bruise_ where my head hit him. Is my skull really the thick? Or was there too much momentum. Maybe a bit of both?

"Why did you hit me, yell at me, then run away from me as though I had burst into flames and declared myself as the Anti-Christ come from Hell to sacrifice you on a cross made of snakes?" I knew he was clever, but that is one hell of an analogy. I give him props for that one.

"Well.. You see.. I was kind of.." I search for the right word, which is kind of hard while mostly-asleep.

Embarrassed? Flustered? Disconcerted? Freaked out? Nervous? Dammit all to hell, I didn't know. I'm waking up a little more and can see him glaring at me pretty hardcore right now.

"_Well? _What do you have to say for yourself?" I flinch at his tone of voice for a second, he must be really quite pissed off. While I'm sitting there mouth agape at this early morning visit, I can feel eyes burning holes into my wrist. Oh fuck. I had fallen asleep half naked again, tired from all the laughing and play-fighting Mattie and I had done yesterday. Which meant...

My wrist and it's ten red little lines are perfectly visible. Shit shit shit. I flop onto my stomach, groping around the carpet for my shirt, well anything really to hide the marks. Soft fingers wrap themselves around my wrist pulling me up to his face. Did he notice? Yes? No? _Shit_.

"I. Am. Not. Leaving. Without. An. Answer." His face is so close to mine that I can feel his breathing warm and sort of light.. As though he's out of breath. A big red flush is creeping its way across my face again and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Those emerald green eyes are just so... Fuck, I could kiss him he's so close to me. His face contorts into a scowl.

"Well?" he lets go of my wrist and I do my best to keep the cuts from showing.

"Well, uhm, you see, I just figured that..." Normally, I was very good at pulling excuses out of my ass, yet with him this close it's as though my brain had stopped working. I take in a deep breath and push the words out, "I figured that you wouldn't be particularly too pleased with my presence after I hit you, so I left." Where was Mattie when I needed him? The look on his face says he doesn't like my answer, but he turns around and moves towards the door, pausing to look back at me and mumble,

"I expect to see you awake and dressed in the library by three o'clock sharp." I mumble something that vaguely resembles "Okay I'll be there" before he shuts the door quietly. It almost feels as though I've become involved in some sort of strange early morning booty call.

* * *

"What do you mean we're staying here all summer! We have to go _home_." Mom says something about business and responsibility. "Business doesn't last that long Mom," I'm getting irritated very quickly, not wanting to stay at a creepy looking boarding school without anyone else but Mattie. "Can't we stay with Uncle Ivan or something?" Despite his creepiness, I'd rather stay with him for three months than the school. She says something about him being busy. In times like this, everyone is always _busy. _

"What about Dad? What exactly will _he _be doing?" Even though Dad's the reason I all but jumped with joy about going to an out-of-country boarding school, I may as well put up with him. It's not like he's going to be around anyways. Mom says something about it being final, talking to the headmaster and shit. Along with telling me that we couldn't just go take a plane home by ourselves. I've been missing the States pretty hardcore lately, and I know for a fact that Mattie's been looking forward to our annual road trip to Canada. Mom goes on about this being arranged and changes are out of the question, and that if she gets the chance she'll come and get us, and we could go home.

"Okay, fine, whatever Mom. Yeah, love you too, bye." I flick the phone shut and throw it onto Matt's desk with a loud _clunk! _Of plastic meeting wood.

"How'd it go?" Matt looks up at me over his cup of coffee, his third cup today. I flop down on his mattress with a heavy sigh.

"Terrible, like always." Mom and I had never been particularly too spectacular at communicating.

"So, in short we're not going home for the summer."

"For the most part, yeah. Sorry about you missing your trip to Canada. I know you were looking forward to it." Mattie snorts.

"It's not your fault Alfred."

"Doesn't matter to me." I roll over on my side, and stare at the carpet. They picked such ugly carpeting. That super ugly kind that only schools use. This definitely threw a wrench in things. So much for a nice relaxing summer.

"Oh!" Mattie looks over at me, glasses gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the window. The dude seriously needed curtains, it was so ungodly bright in here. "Did Arthur Kirkland visit you this morning? I was coming back from doing laundry and saw him walking from the direction of your room." I frown, why was Mattie always doing his laundry at six in the morning?

"Yeah, he did. He asked me about yesterday's fiasco. Wait, why in _hell _were you doing your laundry at six in the morning? On a _Saturday." _He takes a sip of his coffee, probably loaded with maple syrup.

"I couldn't sleep."

"Then go read a book, or watch a movie that will put you to sleep... Like Pride and Prejudice!"

"Hey! I like that movie! And you know it Alfred!" He picks up a throw pillow from up off the floor and throws it at my head. Naturally, it hits spot on. Mattie always was really good at that. It surprises me that he doesn't play baseball. The door bursts open with a "Swiggity swon! Ohhonhon!" Mattie jumps and spills half his coffee on the nice red sweatshirt he's wearing, whilst I crash land off the bed and eat carpet. "Stupid frog!" My face really _hurts, _the school's carpeting really sucks to fall onto. It wouldn't surprise me if my face was particularly pink and covered in slight road rash. Francis _fucking _Bonnefoy, love of my little brother's life, strolls in looking pleased at the sight of Mattie trying to keep the coffee from staining his sweater, and me half on/half off the bed. Mattie looks up at the stupid frog, while he walks in _uninvited _I mean really, get some manners why don't you. The Fuckface Frog stops in front on Matt and starts to smile this creepy smile. "Ah~ Mathieu, I came to see you!" Matt looks from me, to the frog, to the ground, and back to the frog, a small blush creeping across his face. He coughs nervously, waiting for the Fuckface Frog to finish.

"I was thinking to myself last night, and had the most wonderful idea! So, I went over to my dear friend Arthur, you know of him _non?" _Mattie and I look at each other before nodding. "Well, I went to him and said _mon ami! I just had the most wonderful idea! We shall go on a double date! You with Monsieur Jones, and I with the lovely Mathieu Williams!_" Mattie's face turns the color of a tomato and my jaw nearly falls off while trying to get up. "Now! I shall be seeing you in the commons at seven, understand? Also, do dress nicely." Then, without another word he leaves, damn near slamming the door behind him.

"_Oh my God. _Alfred-"

"I know."

"Al, what do we do?"

"Go along with it, I guess." Mattie's violet-blue eyes meet mine and seem to say what I've been thinking, _what in _hell _did we get ourselves into? _

* * *

"You wanted to see me?" Arthur Kirkland looks up at me, from this book that looks fucking _ancient. _I mean, did he get it out of a pyramid of something? Inherit the book from Jesus?

"Yes, I did. Sit." Demanding. I wonder what he's like in bed... Would he bottom or-stop that stop that stop that. No, not now. That is not appropriate to be thinking about in the middle of a fucking library. Especially not in front of _him. _I really hope I'm wearing a straight face, because Mattie says that I tend to let my emotions run free across my face. He words were: "_you should pay attention to the faces you make. Your emotions tend to show through and run across your face like naked hippie babies." _I'm kind of just awkwardly standing here, wondering what exactly he wants to talk to me about. Sighing, I sit down across from him. His green eyes boring holes into my face.

"So," I start, playing with my hand nervously, "What did you, uhm, want to talk about?" A funny nervous look crosses his face, green eyes shining, even though the library is dimly lit, and sort of seriously musty and creepy. I've done my best to avoid it all year. It feels as though ghosts live here... And, well, you could say I'm the teensiest bit afraid of ghosts. Okay, I'm very afraid of ghosts.

"Well, last night, an _associate _of mine and I were talking, and I was wondering if you would maybe..." Oh God. Is this about the double date thing? No. Go away go away I don't want this it seemed like a great idea at first but being here right now? No. This will be a complete and utter disaster. "ahem, come on a date with me? If you're free that is."

… Did he? No way. Arthur Kirkland just _asked me out on a date. _I'm not sure whether I should scream and run away, or fall out of my chair yelling _yes of course! You have no idea how much I've wanted this, and for so long fucking finally! _

I do neither. I gape for a moment before closing my mouth, coughing nervously and squeaking,

"Yes! I mean, yeah. Yeah sure. I will go out on a date with you." I'm going to die I'm going to die. I glance over to Arthur, who's staring down at the table looking as though he's about to hurl.

"Okay, that's... That's good. Be in the commons at seven o'clock. And look nice. You can leave now, I have things to work on."

"Oh, okay. I'll see you later then.. Uhm.." He sighs, looking up from the table at me, smiling lightly.

"Just call me Arthur, I will see you later tonight Alfred." Usually, when he says my name, it's filled with contempt and frustration, but right now... He says it kind of softly, gently almost. I can't help but smile. Maybe I didn't lose all the progress I had made.

"Alright then, good bye.. Arthur." And, I can't help but smile as I walk out of the creepy old library. So, I didn't fuck things up after all.

* * *

Neither Mattie or I own anything nicer than our school uniforms, so we kind of just wore the slacks, button-up shirt, tie-me a navy blue one, and Mattie a ruby red one-with our nicest pair of tennis shoes. Oh, and the blazers from the winter variation of our uniform.

"If I do say so myself, we look pretty damn fine Mattie." Staring at his reflection in the mirror he simply nods. "Well, I guess so. Look, can we just hide in the closet and not go? I'm not so sure about going on a date anymore." Thinking about it, the closets here _are _big enough for two teenage boys to hide in. Not for long though, it would wind up getting awfully cramped and stuffy as hell. I look over at my brother and sigh. He's awfully handsome all dressed up... I mean, as handsome as brothers can be. I look into the mirror at myself, I'm slightly taller than Mattie, but right now all dressed up like this all I can see is Dad. Bleghck.

"So, has Francis talked to you since he came in this morning?"

"No, and I got a light stain on my sweatshirt! And that one's my favorite." I look over at Matt again, and frown.

"Did you throw it out?"

"Hell no! It's been sitting in a bucket of that _OxiClean _stuff all day. I really hope it works. That sweatshirt was a present." I remember the day he got it, I think it was our fifteenth or sixteenth birthday. I had gotten it for him, and if I remember properly, the whole wrist business was at its peak, and Mattie and I were desperately trying to keep Mom and Dad from finding out. Which wasn't too easy. I catch Mattie looking at the clock for the umpteenth time. 6:50 pm.

"We should get going, Al. Better sooner than later."

I sigh, looking at myself in the mirror for the last time. "Probably."

"Did you lock the door to your room?"

"Yes."

"Brush your teeth? Comb your hair?"

"Yes and yes."

"Did you trim your toenails?"

"MATTHEW THAT'S ENOUGH." He laughs, and we walk out the door together, feeling like a pair of idiots. Which we were in a sense. It doesn't take us long to get to the commons, and Arthur and Francis are already there, Arthur leaning against the wall closest to the front doors, arms crossed a scowl on his face. Francis standing wearing a white suit thing, with a pink shirt. The icky kind of pink that you paint a baby girl's room with. Arthur is the opposite, wearing navy blue, with navy blue. Everything is navy blue, almost black, except for his tie. That's a bright color of blue, the same color as my eyes actually. When finally in earshot we can hear them bickering, I motion for Mattie to stop, so we can listen without them noticing.

"Isn't this eavesdropping!" Matt hisses at me. I frown, I didn't care frankly, I was interested in what they were arguing about.

"Shut up and listen!" I work as hard as I can to keep my voice quiet. They're arguing fairly loudly, making it buckets easier for us to hear.

"I didn't want this! You forced me to go." Angry voice number one. Arthur.

"Ah, but _mon ami_, this is the perfect opportunity to get to know your little lover bo-"

"Shut up! Someone might hear you and he is not!" This was starting to get more and more interesting. Did Arthur actually like me? Matt looks over at me and we both shrug in agreement of continuing to listen.

"And what about you, stupid frog? What about your little Matthew Williams?"

"What about him?"

"You know what I mean. You've been toying with him all year, you could at least decide what your feelings for him are."

I can _feel _Mattie's face turning the color or a ripe tomato. I mean, his face is so warm you could cook breakfast on it. We turn to face each other, and nod in agreement that it is the perfect time to stop listening. Matt pats his cheeks to make the blush go away, and then we head down and out of the hallway to meet our doom.

* * *

"So, how are you boys enjoying your stay here in England?"

I make a face, "It's always raining, and I miss the States."

Arthur looks up at me from his plate of salad with a scowl, "It does not!"

"Compared to where we're from, yes, it does actually." I look up from my food, and glance around the restaurant. I didn't think that they were going to take us someplace so ridiculously nice. It looks fancy and expensive. Mattie and I wouldn't come here of our own volition in a million years. We would wind up at... Arby's, the fanciest would be like, Olive Garden. No, not even. Red Robin's. Those were the places we went out for food. What's more, Francis _drove _us here. Another thing I wasn't expecting. And the car was so fucking nice. All brand new and shit. We were dining with rich people. I'm not saying Mattie and I are poor or anything, we just... I don't know. No one said anything for a while after that. Mattie and I looked at each other several times using our Super Wonder Twins body language communication thing Mom says we have. The two of us were nervous as hell. I mean who wouldn't be? If the four of us got any closer than we already were, our noses would be touching. I look down at my salad, picking out all the bits and pieces I liked, carrots and the crunchier parts, avoiding most of the leafy green stuff. I would rather be at McDonald's filling my stomach to the brim with french fries and burgers. Well, at least they served cola here. It was another five minutes of silence before I couldn't take it anymore and blurted out, "So, have you seen any soccer scores lately?" Francis and Arthur look at me as though I had gone insane. Didn't they know what soccer was? But, wait... Did they call it something different? Arthur looked at his plate, to me, and back to his plate again.

"Do you mean footie? Football. We don't call it soccer it Europe." I would hardly call England a part of Europe but decided it was best not to say so. Clearing my throat nervously I mumble something along the lines of, "yeah, football."

"In that case, no I have not. I do not have much interest in sports." It was my turn now, to look at him as though he were insane.

"_What! _How could you _not _like sports!" Mattie elbows my side viciously, and glares at me. Once again, I have spoken without thinking. Go figure. I drop it as fast as I can, but Arthur seems to want to keep running with it. Shit.

"Does it really matter if I like sports or not?"

"Well... I u-uhm, I g-guess not. I mean uhm.." I can't find the right words, and he seems amused at my inability to speak like a normal human being. Augh go away go away go away. Shoo fly go away! Not that he's a fly or anything, flies are gross and ugly, and he's well y'know handsome and all things wonderful in this world. Mattie and Francis seem to be getting along well, blabbering on to each other in French. To me, it sounds like complete and utter gibberish. While _they're _getting along perfectly fine there's this horrible silence that's hanging in between Arthur and I. I hope this doesn't last all night. We move through the salad appetizer, to the entrée which was some fancy meat thing with a soup on the side that tasted funny, finishing with a really yummy cheesecake for desert. Arthur and I barely said anything to each other. So, maybe I was wrong. I _had _lost all my progress, either that or he just didn't have anything to say to me. I really hope that it's the latter not the former. Finally after _two hours _of unbearable silence he finally says, "So, what exactly are you going to be doing this summer?"

"Oh, uhm, actually, Mattie and I are staying at school the whole summer. Our Mom is busy with business, and apparently everyone we know is busy as well." He humphs.

"Funny, so will I." Wait. Hold the _fuck _up. He what?

"What?" That's all I can bring myself to say. He looks down and scowls at the remains of his cheesecake.

"I'm staying. I decided I didn't feel like dealing with my brothers and father, so I told him I'm staying. He wouldn't have noticed anyways."

"Oh." Well then. Add another wrench to the pile I guess. I didn't think that he would have family problems. Then again, it's like what Mom kept telling us, no one is ever what they seem on the outside. I'm fairly sure that she meant business though.

"Would you, er... Want to do this again sometime?"

"Pardon?" I look up and once again, Arthur is looking at anywhere but me. Did he just... No way.

"Would you like to go out on a date with me again sometime over the summer. Don't be so dense."

He did oh my God he did. I clear my throat.

"I don't see why not." Some lady walks up, who I would have found to be particularly pretty if I didn't y'know swing the other way, and drops off the check. Neither Arthur or Francis would let us see how much it was, so that must've meant this whole ordeal was really quite expensive. The trip back to school was ridiculously quiet and uncomfortable. The four of us went our separate ways, Arthur taking me to my room, Francis taking Mattie to his room. The school was disturbingly silent at night, and Arthur didn't seem to have any intention of breaking the silence.

Finally, we got to my room, and I swear as soon as I get in there I'm ripping this goddamn tie to shreds. I feel like it's choking me or something.

"So, uhm..." I start, unsure how to proceed with my awkward good bye. "I'll see you at the Council meeting on Monday?" Those big green eyes stare into mine. I'm dying I'm dying they're so.. Umph.

"If you wish." The look on his face says he wants to say something more but, nothing happens. I go about unlocking my door, and opening it, ready to get the fuck out of here. He pulls the elbow of my jacket, looking down at the ground. And pulls me towards him a bit, mumbling,

"Good night Alfred. I.. I had a good night.. With you."

That stupid fucking blush crawls across my face again, and I nod.

"Me too, good night Arthur."

He pulls away from me, and turns to leave, scowling at the ground. But doesn't move. I don't want to be impolite but... I go inside, and lock the door behind me, and I can hear him muttering while walking away. I flop down on the bed fully clothed.

"This, was an utter disaster. I hope Mattie had a better time than I did."

* * *

A/N: So long, well, anyways, Arthur gets more interesting when I finally get the next chapter rolling! Also, I think I know where this is going now. Reviews are great and whatnot. Anyways, I look forward to seeing you again or something.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

A/N: Hello again! This story has gone on a lot longer than I expected... Anyways! Arthur gets interesting! And stuff! Happy reading, and reviews are cool and stuff. I will do my best to keep up with daily updates~

* * *

Mattie and I had spent most of this morning talking about last night, and how each of our parts of the date had went. I complained about how awkward it was, and Matt went on and on about how great his was. Apparently, the Fuckface Frog is _quite _romantic and they have agreed to go out on another date sometime next week. Lovely. And also, he said that when they parted ways at his door Francis had kissed him or something. I automatically began to half-listen after the words "Francis kissed me" came out of his mouth. I honestly did _not need to know_ how long it had lasted, how good of a kisser he was..

"MATT STOP STOP STOP." I look over at Matt who's smiling like an idiot, and as red as a sunburned lobster. He looks at me shyly, murmuring,

"But, why? I was just telling you-"

"All the things I never wanted to know thanks."

"_Alfred_ can I please-"

"If you say anything more about the two of you making out I will have to strangle you with my bare hands." Matt _humph_s and picks at the frayed ends of a red sweater. How many red sweaters can one person own? A lot evidently.

"So, what happened when Arthur took you to your room?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Unless awkward silence and an unpleasant 'good night'," okay, it wasn't _that _unpleasant just exceptionally awkward. "counts as something." I mean... I don't even know. I barely slept at all, wondering if there was any way it could have gone differently. But, I really couldn't think up of anything.

"Hmm." I look up sharply, getting a crick in my neck. _Fuck! It __**hurts! **_Matt has that funny look on his face, the one he gets when thinking about something important. Is my love life that important to him? I sigh and flop back down on top of his mattress staring at the ceiling.

"Hey..."

"What?" Matt says it kind of cautiously as though I'm about to announce that I killed someone with a rubber chicken during the wee hours of the morning.

"Why are we always hanging out in your room? Why not mine?"

"Didn't we talk about that at the beginning of the year? My room's closest to the student lounge, y'know where all the food is?" Ah, that's right... We had had a long in depth discussion about it. In the end, it was settled by a coin toss. Mattie won. Which isn't all that abnormal. Add that to the long list of things he's good at, like math and different languages. I had science in the bag, but before moving here, I had played a lot of sports and did all sorts of clubs and was fairly (really) popular. After Mattie and I got here, we were the "strange Canadian"-which wasn't particularly too fair to Mattie because of his double citizenship thing he has going on there-and the "loud American". Completely different atmosphere. There are people from all over the place here. A guy from Switzerland who's always hanging around this really short girl from Liechtenstein (where ever that is); Ludwig and Gilbert the two German guys; Feliciano and Lovino Vargas from Italy; and Antonio weirdlastname from Spain. And, then Francis Bonnefoy from France... the list goes on and on. There's also a guy from Sweden who hangs out with this Finnish kid. The Swedish dude, what was his name... Berwald? Yeah, that's it. He calls the Finnish kid-Tino-his wife. Weird.

"Earth to Alfred! This is Houston calling to Alfred Jones space hero!"

"What!? Oh. Sorry." Matt raises an eyebrow at me.

"What in hell were you thinking about?"

"That really tall Swedish guy. Y'know the grumpy one? And how he calls the Finnish kid in our math class, Tino, his wife."

"Alfred. Why would you be thinking about that?" I sit up, and stop for a moment.

Why _was _I thinking about that?

"I don't know."

"I think it's time for you to go to sleep now, bro."

* * *

Hmph. So much for spending the whole day with Mattie. It might have been for the best though, I didn't have much else to do, so I showered, organized my room, deep cleaned my closet, and did my laundry. That's how _bored _I was. I mean, I never clean my closet. _Ever. _I've always deemed it as unnecessary. After the three hours it took to do all of that, I'm sitting-well, laying to be exact-on my floor sorting through my messenger bag. I hum for a bit, and... wait. Where did my student council papers folder go?

I look up and stare at the wall.

Oh. That's right.

I practically shoved it in Arthur's face before running out the door like the room was on fire. I think I have the time to go get it from him...

"And Mister Clock says... Eight forty-five. Oh, that's plenty of time."

I get up off the floor, and set about putting on some real clothes. Well, really, just a sweatshirt. I don't particularly feel like changing out of my pajama pants.

"Okeydokey then. Lock the door and we are on our way." I start walking then stop.

Where exactly was his room anyways? Is there some sort of map that I can purchase and use as a guide to the boys' dormitory? Hmm. Wait, aren't they sorted alphabetically? Well, then I'd be in the J section and... I look back at my door.

"Well fuck."

That's right, there are name tags by the doors. You can always count on Alfred F. Jones to be fairly oblivious. So... I figure... If I keep going left, from facing my door I should find him. Somewhere.

* * *

It takes about ten minutes of aimless meandering to finally find it. It's in one of the most secluded parts of the dorm I mean, most of the name tags were empty, except for his. It was just kind of there.

I knock once. No answer.

Knock again. No answer.

I wait a few minutes before getting read to giving up, but... fuck it, I figure he's in there maybe he just can't hear me or something. Pulling at the door handle was kind of pointless, it was locked. I'm about ready to turn away when a small flash of silver catches my eye. Ah, so there's where he hides his spare key. You see, we were all given a spare key for our doors, in case we were ever in need of it. Matt gave me his, and I gave him mine. There have been multiple instances over the year where one of us has either locked ourselves out, or simply left our keys at the other's room. It takes some wiggling, mind you, he has it hidden in a place where only people with fairly slim fingers can pull it out easily and my hands are _not _slim. I mean, they're not really big, it's just uhm, no matter which way I try to say it, it keeps sounding more and more wrong. Anyway, it doesn't take too long before I've got the key out, and carefully open the door to find...

"Stupid idiot. Should have... Should have..."

It's all dark in there, and through the tiny bit of light in the room, there's the glittering look that only glass bottles have. Bottles of... Rum? What the hell? Rum and bourbon and shit, vodka too. And, those three are just the _empty _ones. I walk in slowly, and shut the door behind me, really quite curious as to what the _fuck _happened here. There's a box that looks as though it's been pulled out from beneath the bed _full _of bottles. All different shapes and sizes.

"Idiot. You should have kissed him when you had the chance."

Pardon? Kissed who? Kissed _me? _The farther into his room I get, the more clearly I can see a small figure leaned up against the bed, legs splayed out in front, with a bottle frequently being raised and sipped from in between drunken mutterings.

"A-Arthur?" Dammit, my voice had gotten all squeaky again.

"Piss off."

"Hey! Not cool, what are you doing in here all by yourself?"

"I'm getting horribly drunk. Piss off." I sigh, and walk over to the bed, leaning down to look at Arthur's face, his eyes look sort of red, as though he's been crying, with dark purple bags underneath. Maybe he hasn't been sleeping very well. And, he most definitely hasn't recognized me yet. I'm not sure whether or not that's a good thing. He lifts up that bottle one last time swearing when he finds it to be empty. He throws it across the room, causing it to hit another bottle and shatter.

"Holy shit!" I pretty much jumped out of my skin in a totally not hero way, slipped and crash landed face first into his lap. "Son of a bitch." Okay. Okay. Let's not totally freak out right now. You are laying face first in.. in.. Fuck it! Now is a great time to freak. The fuck. Out. I push myself up harshly, knocking his hand away from the box filled with alcohol. I'm pretty sure that I should probably be trying to stop Arthur from drinking, but right now I'm more concerned about him getting hurt. It takes about three seconds for me to find the wastebasket-his room is so incredibly _clean _just oh my god-and quickly set about carefully picking up all the little bits and pieces of glass. I hear a little _pop! _Behind me, and a small voice slur, "Aah, addiction never smelled so sweet." It's like I've become invisible in my quest to get all the broken glass and empty bottles as far away from him as possible.

There are several large gulps behind me, then a quiet voice,

"Hey! You there cleaning! I like him." I stop picking up the last bottle, to turn around and stare at him. Those eyes... Typically, they are a nice vibrant limey shade of green but right now, his eyes are dull, almost flat looking, plus an aura of sadness and dismay is radiating off of the inebriated boy in front of me. If I had my way, he would never look like this. I swallow, a lump forming in my throat.

"Who... Who is it that you like?" I-I can barely breathe, it's like I've become allergic to oxygen or something.

"The American boy. You know him; tall, dusty blond hair, eyes as blue as the sky-scratch that. Bluer than the sky. Also, he has this funny bit of hair that sticks up in the front. Overall, handsome as hell."

"Oh." Dammit! I'm blushing again. So... he does like me. Yes yes yes! This would have be-

"But I fucked everything up though. Ruined it like always."

"Pardon?"

"You heard me. I, Arthur Kirkland, fucked it all up. I was given the chance to give him a perfect date, like in the movies. _Instead, _all I gave him was an evening full of silence. Some lover I am." Another set of large gulping. "Delicious, damn fine rum you got here Mister Bartender." he mutters to himself sarcastically. I have no idea how much he has had to drink but it's definitely more than enough. Although, as drunk as he is, his speech is fairly coherent. Which would mean...

"Arthur. Where did you get all those bottles of alcohol?" He looks up at me, squinting some, hair more disheveled than it usually is, and laughs.

"Stupid old man would never notice even if I had emptied his entire cabinet at once!"

Apparently, this is hilarious. He laughs and laughs whilst I finish with all these damn empty bottles. After that, I sit across from him, just kind of... watching him drink and laugh. Going on and on about his family. In between gulps he'll say something about his father who's life-from what I've heard these past few minutes-revolves around work and alcohol. Arthur doesn't stop at just his father and brothers (who, in an ascending order, is even worse than the last, excluding the youngest brother Peter who has just been classified as 'annoying') he talks about me and school. Two bottles later and it's almost ten thirty. I look over at the clock, 10:19. Well then.

"Okay, come on buddy, sleepy time now." I stand and pull the bottle out of his hands saying softly, "Enough is enough, we have school tomorrow."

"School can piss off." On a whim, I decide to grab his school bag, which turns out to be a messenger bag quite similar to my own, and motion for him to get up. "Come on Art."

"Don't call me that! My name is Ar_thur_ thank you very much."

I sigh and look down at him, he's sitting there looking up at me with his hands outstretched for me to pull him up with. He has this pathetic look at his face.

"Pull me up."

"You sound like a little kid."

"Piss off." I sigh and do as he says, pulling him up, and holding one arm to see how well he can stand on his own.

He nearly eats carpet.

He would have gone all the way to the floor if I hadn't wrapped my arms around his waist.

* * *

The walk back to my room takes a significant less amount of time compared to trying to get to Arthur's room. I've barely closed and locked my door when he jumps me.

"Jesus Christ on a cross!"

He is all over me. I try to push him away but it's not... really... working.

"Bed. Now." I really hope I sound commanding enough for Arthur's drink addled brain to listen to me.

"Okay!~" he says in a lilting voice that is so unlike his own that it kind of really worries me. Setting his bag down next to my own, I turn to see him trying-and failing miserably-to pull off his sweater vest.

"Son of a bitch! Hey! Stop that!" A pair of confused green eyes meet my seriously freaked out blue ones. I walk over to him slowly, helping him pull off his sweater vest all the way.

"Don't you like it?" I don't say anything to that, focusing only on keeping him from pulling off any more pieces of his clothing.

"Well? Don't you?" I sigh, which I've been doing a lot lately, and push my glasses up with the backs of my hands while rubbing my eyes wearily.

"Yes. No. Yes, ugh no, not in this situation. Look, do you even know who I am right now?"

"You are Alfred F. Jones and I love you.

Holy shit. Holy shit. HOLY SHIT. Before I can think up of anything to say other than "oh my god" or "holy fucking shit" I'm being undressed. No. No no no no the marks on my wrist fuck. No.

"Hey! Come on! Stop it! Stop it stop it!"

"Resistance is futile!" I'm met with giggles, and my sweater being pulled off of me kind of roughly.

My night, just got all kinds of interesting.

* * *

A/N: Welp, I am honestly sorry to leave you hanging there. I'm not entirely too sure what's going to happen next but something interesting. Anyways! Hurray! Love confessions! Clean bedrooms!

This chapter is a lot shorter than I wanted it to be. Any ways! If you couldn't tell already drunk Arthur is a fun person to be around and things will be getting, well, uhm, yeah. Have a good night! And you expect to see me on Wednesday at latest, until then~

(╯◕ヮ◕)╯*:･ﾟ


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A/N: Sorry for the super slow update! It was really awkward to have to type this up on the home computer that's in the living room where everyone can see what I'm doing, but yeah, things go from fluffy to dirty to fluffy and then well, any ways, happy reading whatever whatever I really don't want to go through the awkward process of revising this so just PM me if you find any mistakes guys~

Also! Thanks for the really awesome reviews guys~

oOo

I wasn't particularly too prepared when Arthur kissed me.

I mean, it's nice and he's a better kisser than I had ever imagined he would be. Gently biting my lip and holding my face in his hands-which are ridiculously soft thank you very much. I could get lost in these kisses forever.

Ugh, why hadn't I just done this before? Skip all the waiting and just jump him and get it over with. I mean, this is just so wonderful, pushed up against the wall, and I've just... I've never been wanted in this kind of way before. It's brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I would give up everything if I could do this everyday for the rest of my life. Hurting myself, all those years I wasted pretending to be happy when I had been hurting on the inside, fuck, I would stay in England if I had to.

I think I understand what they mean, all the fireworks and shit going on inside your head while kissing the person that you love.

"Mmmph!" It's really quite startling to find yourself being pushed down onto your bed, followed by about one hundred-sixty some pounds. The kissing stops and a small muffled voice mumbles,

"You said it was time for bed, yes?"

"Well... Yeah." I already knew that Arthur can be particularly hot/cold sometimes, but this is really quite confusing.

"Ooh~ how nice and fit you are!"

Drunk Arthur is fairly silly, and undressing me. Again. But... this is quite ni-

"What does this do?" His fingers are gently poking at my cowlick, moving towards pulling.

"Please don't pull on tha-dammit..." I'm not entirely too sure why but, as Mattie and I discovered a couple years ago, pulling on our cowlicks feels nice. I remember the day we found that out really well, we were about seven or so..

"What exactly do these stupid pieces of hair do anyways?"

"I don't know. Hey! Alfred I know! You like science right?"

I turn to Mattie and sigh, "You know very well that I do."

"Then let's perform an experiment! You'll pull on mine, and I'll pull on yours at the same time!" It sounded fairly reasonable, so why not? "Alright, well, grab a hold then." We carefully clutched each other's little piece of hair that stuck up, Mattie's was longer and more curly than mine, falling forward from his face, while mine stood straight up and curled towards the back of my head.

"One... two... three... Pull!" We look at each other and a weird shiver runs from the top of my head to my tummy. It felt kind of... nice.

"That... That felt n-nice." We said in unison, quickly turning away from the other trying to hide our red faces.

I never thought that one small piece of hair would end up being the deciding factor as to what my actions would be. It still feels incredibly nice and he won't let go tugging softly every couple of seconds, I mean really, that's not very nice. The tugging and kissing stops, several slim fingers delicately touching my wrist. The one with the marks. Fuck now he knows.

Before I can pull away, Arthur's pulled my arm up closer to his face, so he can see it better, a funny confused type of look crosses his face, and it's seriously startling when he begins kissing all of the scarred up and marred places. Whispering, "It's alright. You'll be alright."

"How do you know?"

"I know, because I love you."

Oh. Ahem.

"I... I-"

"Shut up and kiss me already." Alrighty then. I pull him down by the collar to start one of those marvelous kisses again. Clothes seem to be out this season because it doesn't seem to take too long for me to have lost my t-shirt and pajama pants, and he his button-up, tie, and slacks. I wonder... is that all he owns? Really nice clothes? Wouldn't surprise me. He seems the gentlemanly-

"Hey!"

"What? I was just... Trying to make you happy." Okay, maybe... Maybe this has gone far enough I mean, he's drunk and I don't...

"I know. Look this is nice and all," more kissing, around my neck this time which is super sensitive apparently just holy fuck. "But, I don't want to take advantage of you."

"Why?" he sounds kind of... hurt. Well son of a bitch.

"You're drunk, and I don't want to take advantage of you just because you won't remember in the morning."

"I'll remember..." he nuzzles my neck, getting as close to me as he can, which is a lot closer than you would think. "I always remember, and never forget."

"Oh. Green light says go you know."

oOo

"Did you sleep well?" I look up at Mattie, who's obviously quite interested in how my evening went, but also has a frog (Francis) hanging around his neck.

"Ugh, no. I hurt all over."

"Did something happen?"

"Nothing happened Matt."

"No, something obviously happened you little fucking liar." Now, it's particularly rare for Mattie swear, and most of the time he only does it because he knows I'm hiding something from him and is very determined to find out what it is. Like now, but to be honest I would rather not have him know the intricate details of my sex life because seriously, that's really gross and no one but me (and Arthur by default) needs to know about it. I look down at my third or fourth cup of coffee, doing my best to avoid the vicious glare Matt's sending my way, and trying to ignore the look Francis has that keeps saying: Ahaha I know what you did. I mean, can he go away?

...

Actually, I'm kind of dying to tell someone about how excellent and awesome it was, someone-anyone-other than Francis.

"Mathieu mon amour, il ne vous dira rien, mais il ne doit pas, parce que je sais ce qui s'est passé." Stupid frog! It's all gibberish! Gibberish just gibberish. The frog keeps looking from me to Matt, and back to me again. What in hell is he saying? Matt's obviously become more interested in what Francis is saying and for FUCK'S SAKE if it wasn't so ridiculously awesome I would never have sex ever again.

"Vraiment? Eh bien, passer à autre chose! Qu'est-il arrivé? At-il quelque chose à voir avec Arthur?" I hate French. I hate it I hate it I hate it. They're talking about Arthur, so... that must mean... They are also talking about me well fucking fuck. Having a brother who's French-Canadian really sucks, well, he was right about putting maple syrup in coffee though. That is pretty good.

They are looking at me. And back to each other.

"Ne pourriez-vous dire? Votre cher frère est vierge rien de plus." I don't know what Francis said to make Mattie stare at me but,

"WILL YOU PLEASE STOP THAT I AM SO LOST YOU HAVE NO IDEA SPEAK YOUR FRENCH IN THE BEDROOM FOR FUCK'S SAKE! Graah!"

I am so ready to just... Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! My back really hurts, and then there's this French business. This has just been a really agitating morning for me, okay? Not to mention, the student council meeting starts in a little bit, and Arthur is still sleeping-naked-in my room, which, how in hell do I explain to everyone that the Student Council president got drunk, I found him, took him back to my room, wound up losing my virginity, and that he's probably nursing a hangover in my bedroom?

...Just like that actually. What if I just lie and say he's sick? That will probably sound a lot better than what actually happened.

"Alfred?"

"Yes Matt?"

"Are you okay? You're looking kind of... really red right now."

"Yup! Totally okay! Peachy!" Perfectly fine, definitely not thinking about last night and where exactly Arthur had touched me, and how he had touched me and all the wonderful things that went along with that. They're staring at me with this knowing look and if we weren't in the cafeteria I would have lost it and started yelling.

"Hello, have you seen Mr. Kirkland?" A strong hand lands on my shoulder. What? I look up into the childish face of Ivan Braginsky, which scares the fuck out of me, I mean, his face is childish in a really creepy way. Sometimes, he just comes out of no where scaring the shit out of you, laughing a little bit while watching you yelp and fall out of the chair you're sitting in. I look over and Mattie has the look he gets when he's getting ready to make up an excuse and get the fuck out of somewhere.

"Ahem, perhaps you did not hear me, nyet?"

"O-oh. Uhm, what w-was your question again?" Go away go away go away go away!

"Ah, I was wondering if you have seen Mr. Kirkland?"

"N-no, sorry. I haven't seen him since Friday morning, you could try the Student Council room though." Oh my God, oh my GOD could this morning get any more stressful?

"Da, I will try there, perhaps I will have better luck. Good bye Mr. Jones, and to you too Mr. Williams." Mattie whimpers, looking like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck carrying a bed full of rabbits on crack. Which, thinking about it, would be really quite intimidating. Especially if you weren't expecting it, like BAM! there's this big truck full of rabbits on crack. The innocent looking ones you know? Just like: whoa dude. Lemme hook you up with a good dealer.

I think, I think this is how it's so obvious that I'm from the States. Some big scary Russian guy is pretty much molesting my shoulder with his hand, staring down Francis, and I'm just chillin' here thinking about hooking up rabbits with good crack dealers.

"Francis."

"Ivan."

"So, you're not hanging out with your, Bad Touch Trio friends anymore?"

"No, I'm afraid not. I don't do that anymore."

"Oh really?"

So, you see, the temperature went from really nice and comfortable to that kind of freezing that indicates a fight is coming on. I look over at Mattie, who's staring up at Francis with these big doe eyes all like: Hello, pay attention to me. What's going on? But, is being ignored. This happens a lot more than I'm willing to admit. It's really awkwardly silent, in a bad way. You know what I mean, that kind of silence that you see on the outdoor channels right before they shoot and get the animal they went out hunting for. I've never been in this situation before, and I would rather never be in it ever again. I think it's my turn to try to leave now...

"O-kay! I just remembered that Mattie and I have something really super important that we need to do right now, so we're going to go and see you lay-ter, okay? Okay, good bye now! We will meet again sometime soon I hope."

oOo

"What the hell just happened? What's this 'Bad Touch Trio' thing about? What did the scary Russian guy want with Arthur? What's going on? Alfred. Alfred I'm really freaking out right now."

"I can tell." Mmm munchins and crunchins. (Chips, and I mean like, potato chips. Not this french fries business. Why do they call chips crisps anyways? Stupid.)

"Why are you so calm about this!? It's perfectly okay to freak out, I mean, it looked like he wanted to eat me! Eat me Alfred! Like I was some sort of animal or something!"

"Mhm." I stopped paying full attention a few minutes ago, Mattie's in one of those moods where you don't even need a real conversation, just someone to stand there listening-or in my case eating and only sort of paying attention. It never ceases to amaze me at how ugly the boys' dormitory is. It's all this gross tan color, it looks like someone ate something really strange then threw up all over the walls, ceiling and carpet. Disgusting.

"Alfred?" I hum in response, mouth full of the tasty salt and vinegar chips they have here. It burns my tongue sometimes, but is so totally worth it. "Where is Arthur anyways?" I sigh, is this my new thing or something? I swear, it's like I'm dissatisfied with everything. Which I'm not, life has totally picked up for me recently. (Last night.)

"My room."

"Why is Arthur Kirkland in your room?"

"He just is, I'll save you the details. It's a long story."

"What kind of story."

"A you-really-don't-want-to-know story."

"Alfred, say no more." We walk around the halls for a bit, kind of aimlessly. It takes us a few minutes but we've wound our way through the entire third floor of the boys' dorm twice, and have arrived at my door.

"Son of a bitch! Where am I?" Oh, he's awake. Matt turns to me, with this very concerned look on his face.

"I think that's your cue to go in and calm the beast." The door opens with a loud bang! dazing the two of us, and standing there looking back at us, is Arthur Kirkland standing in his underpants. Union Jack underpants. Mattie and I both dissolve into giggling fits, and I push Arthur back inside, forcing out in between giggles,

"Go collect your frog for school Matt, I'll see you in a bit."

"Later bro."

"Later."

I shut the door behind me, and he's just sort of standing there, in his underwear looking seriously pissed off. What did I do? He doesn't seem particularly too hung over to me, although my bed does have the appearance a bed gets when someone has fallen out of it.

"So, uhm, you're awake." Where exactly do I go from here? Kiss him? Hug him? Thank him? Well, thanking him would kind of be acting as though he was a hooker or something, which he is not. From what I remember, he does have the experience of one. Ah, that was a particularly good bit there, sort of slimy but still really really good. I have goosebumps everywhere just thinking about it. I didn't notice it last night, but Arthur is really quite pale, spectral almost. Freaky. Even with that pale spookiness he's very handsome. A little shorter than me, green eyes like precious gems, longs arms with small hands and slim fingers. Almost everything about him is small, and kind of fragile looking. I wish I could just hold him in my arms and protect him forever and ever and ever.

"What are you doing. Staring at me like that."

"Admiring you." I lock the door behind me and move towards the bed, where's he's standing.

"You're really quite handsome," I murmur, placing one hand on the side of his face, gingerly rubbing my thumb in circles across his cheek. "Don't tell me you're not. Here right now, looking at you, I have all the proof I need."

"And," he fidgets nervously, "What do you see?"

"I see... Pink cheeks, and long arms with small hands and slim fingers, a fair complexion, slender waist," my other hand-which was just sort of uselessly hanging there-wraps around his abdomen slowly. His skin, despite being so pale is incredibly soft, like the inside of a brand new sweatshirt. "I also see, eyes that are even more green than the most expensive of precious jewels, hair that's softer than silk to the touch, and my first love." Arthur blushes properly when I say that, and instead of pushing me away like I was expecting, wraps his arms tightly around my waist, nuzzling my neck.

"So you finally said it back."

I nod, sliding the tips of my fingers up and down his spine, which sticks out a little near the nape of his neck. We stand like this for a while, completely absorbed in the other's company. I honestly don't think I've ever had such a perfect hug in my entire seventeen years of existence.

"H-hey Alfred?"

"Yeah?"

"Isn't there a student council meeting today?"

I pull him in a little closer, and whisper, "Yeah, there is, but I would much rather spend my time here with you."

"Mm, me too. This is really quite nice... I wish we didn't have to go to school, I'd rather have a repeat of last night."

I smile into the top of his head, "So you do remember."

"How could I forget? It was just... mind-blowingly brilliant." He fidgets a bit, before he cheeks heat up and mutters, "Would you... Would you... Like to do it again... Right now?" his voice is all quiet and small, as though he's unsure of himself. "I mean... We have the time to."

I stop everything I'm doing to pull out of the warm, glorious hug so I can put my hands on his shoulders and look him in the eye.

"Do you mean it? Absolutely truly mean it?" He plays with his hands nervously.

"W-well, I, er, yes." After that, I waste absolutely no time abandoning my clothes and pulling him onto my bed, shoving those pesky blankets out of the way. Arthur is pretty dominant in bed, leaning over me while kissing all over my neck, mouth, chest and then leading down to my groin, reaching one hand up to pull on the weird cow lick thing. He seems to really enjoy teasing me, sticking one finger in his mouth, afterwards slowly-oh so fucking slowly-sliding it up and down my (already but, it's been that way for a while now) rock hard cock, giggling at me trying to stifle a little moan that comes when finger is quickly followed by tongue. The more he plays the harder it is for me to keep quiet. And I can guarantee you that these walls are not soundproof.

It feels like a dream almost when he finally puts it in his mouth, alternating between sucking and giggling at my pathetic attempts to keep from making noise.

"A-Arthur.. Please... I-hnng.." Why is he so goddamn good at this? Frustrating but it feels so so fantastic just... fuck. It doesn't take too long for him to pull my right leg over his hip and begin the careful process of making lube appear out of nowhere, rubbing it up and down himself and then finally lining everything up perfectly.

It honestly takes everything i have to not cry out when his hips meet mine. Over and over a gentle rocking motion that gradually gets harder and harder until Arthur's mouth is at my neck again, biting me, which feels super fantastic just holy shit, the two of us both desperately trying to keep from making noise (I mean it when I say these walls are not soundproof, I have heard the most disgusting sounds from the room next to mine you have no idea) as everything starts to pick up towards it's peak, and I'm really not too sure how we haven't broken the bed yet, I mean really.

This is really just cracktastic, over and over again hitting this funny tickly place spot on. I swear if this goes on much longer I'm going to scream, it's just so... I don't even have the words to describe how good this feels. The brilliant sensation of the two of us climaxing simultaneously, then Arthur's elbows buckling and him falling down on top of me. I'm probably going to have to wash my bed sheets later today, but right now all I want to do is lay here, like this, forever.

"Please tell me that we can lay here and never get up."

Arthur kisses my cheek sweetly, murmuring softly, "I wish I could love."

We kind of just cuddle after that, neither of us asking what time it is, or moving to get up and begin the process of getting ready for school. A good ten minutes or so pass by of quiet, content cuddling then,

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_

"Alfred, we know you are in here!" Arthur jumps so high he almost rolls off of me and crashes out of bed, while I jump and hit my head against the wall swearing loudly.

"Ve~ Alllfred," Is that...? "You missed the meeting Alfred, you and Mister President both!"

Arthur scrambles off the bed the second the banging starts up again, hastily throwing his clothes on, with me following suit.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" I'm trying to be as quiet as possible, I look over and Arthur motions from me to the door, silently telling me to make up an excuse as to why I haven't opened the door.

"Hey! Ah ha ha, I'm sort of really busy at the moment, could you come back in ten minutes or so?" I mean, I know Ludwig's very serious about this student council business and this has happened once before (I had been woken up at three in the morning by Mattie calling me from the bathroom whining at me saying something about having had thrown up, and didn't get to sleep at all). I can hear some grunting and an Italian sounding voice say, "Okay!~ Ve~" Footsteps sound away from the door , and I start to relax, that was so so incredibly close. The side of my sleeve is pulled , with a shy voice saying quietly, "I think I picked up one of your shirts..."

I look over from the door to find Arthur in a shirt that's obviously way too big for him, fingers holding up the sleeves, and one shoulder having had slid down to reveal the pale skin beneath.

"You're really fucking cute, did you know that?" He blushes some, and I know for a fact that today is going to be a good day.

oOo

The next time I see you, we shall get down to business with Francis and the Bad Touch Trio, which will be interesting, and meet Lovino and all those guys. Fun stuff. I'm getting my own personal laptop soon which will make the updates faster and more well written and all the good stuff!

**A/N **9/14/13: Jesus, I went to revise some things and I'm just.. Ugh. I have a million apologies right now .. For new readers, it gets better I swear.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

A/N: Hello again! So, things get all serious with the Bad Touch Trio, and all woah dude. Anyways, thank you wonderful guys for liking this and reading it and so on. This chapter turned out to be shorter than I would have liked, but I was being pestered about using the computer.

Anyways, happy trails you know the drill.

* * *

You see, I have always been sort of really quite protective over Mattie. He was never really the strongest, and has always been really easy to trust someone with everything and later get hurt. This happened a couple of times when he was trying to figure out which way he swung, because girls seemed to sort of gravitate towards him, but in a different way that girls would gravitate towards me. He was nice, and quiet, and would never hesitate to give out compliments and give advice and he's just really great okay? This came back to bite him in the ass multiple times, the first time I shrugged it off, figuring it would just be this one time and he would learn what to trust people with.

But.

It kept happening.

Over and over and over again. Word seemed to float around that he was very easy to take advantage of and boys and girls alike sort of sought him out when they needed someone like Mattie who they could bend to their wishes. It wasn't until I had stolen a couple of chocolate bars and zipped up to his room at around one in the morning one night when I had found him holding his stuffed polar bear-Mr. Kumajirou-crying in a corner of his bedroom. Now, Mr. Kumajirou is _not _small. It's about the same height as I am now, which made it seem _huge _when Mattie first got it (we were about three or so), so he was more laying on it than holding it. He wouldn't tell me what was wrong but after some tea with maple syrup, and about six chocolate bars he finally explained it all. After that, I mean, he was crying really really hard. I could barely understand what he was saying at some parts, I told him to hang around me and I would keep him safe. He made me pinky promise, and I did everything I could to keep him from being hurt again. After I beat one kid up for making Mattie cry (which got me suspended, and almost expelled) everyone stopped bothering him. Mattie was a lot happier, and I was too, as long as Mattie was happy, I would be too.

Which was the basis of my reasoning when I confronted Francis the Fuckface as soon as Mattie started to show any semblance of interest in him. And thus begins my knowledge of Francis the Fuckface, Antonio funnylastname, and Gilbert the guy with a bird (sometimes I call him Gilbird) and the 'Bad Touch Trio'.

Now, the Bad Touch Trio was a group of three dudes-Gilbird, Francis the Fuckface, and Antonio-that were widely known for their "awesomeness" as Gilbird had put it, but for the most part they were widely known simply for the fact that they seemed to be able to do anything. They were also, for a short while, known for being particularly cruel. Mostly to the Austrian guy Roderich, and occasionally to Arthur. It's said that the Hungarian girl Elizabeta once hit each of them in turn for picking on Roderich. They have a thing or something apparently. Anyways, for a while they just were not nice. But, according to some during their sophomore or junior year (depends on who you ask) they disbanded. No one was ever too sure why, lots of rumours flew about all over the place. They got in trouble, had a big fight, all sorts of stuff.

No one but me.

Because around November I confronted Francis and learned everything. They disbanded for various reasons. Gilbird's younger brother Ludwig (he's on the Student Council, does all the treasury type things, arranging fund raisers and so on) was being beaten up simply for being related to him, Gilbert didn't know until Ludwig had come home to their apartment (school housing is really quite expensive, it was a miracle but for the most part Mattie and I are here on scholarship) covered in bruises and wounds all over the place. Antonio wound up meeting Lovino Vargas, Feliciano's elder brother, and something about Lovino had convinced Antonio that it just really wasn't worth it, I think that Feliciano and Lovino had gotten hurt or something by the same group of people who had hurt Ludwig, and nothing had really happened to Francis. No one had gotten hurt, but this is what he told me,

"_It was your younger brother Mathieu. He was so innocent, I couldn't help but want to keep him from getting hurt. Which is what they threatened to do. Everything that meant even a little bit to us was damaged. We, Antonio, Gilbert and I, came together one day and had agreed that this needed to stop. All of the people who meant something to us were being hurt, and each time was even worse than the last. If we hadn't disbanded when we did, I am positive that Ludwig, Feliciano and Lovino would have had multiple bones broken. It came to a point where we told them to stay in their rooms and lock the door. It just wasn't worth the risk of them getting hurt. We tried confronting their assailants but, alas they seemed to simply fade into darkness." he paused and looked at the sky, "We couldn't just sit and watched them get hurt. Some days after the first time Ludwig had been beaten they came to me and threatened to hurt Mathieu. They said that they would do such horrible things to him. I couldn't just sit about and let that happen. It wasn't too long until we disbanded, and promised that we would be friends again someday. I miss being friends with Toni and Gilbert very much but, our friendship can wait, that is the type of friendship we have. I am sure that sometime soon mon amis and I will be able to talk and laugh the way we used to." he sighed and turned to look at me, "So long as they are happy, I will be happy too. You understand don't you? If you didn't feel the same way towards your brother you wouldn't be here talking to me right now." I nodded and murmured something along the lines of "yeah, I understand."_

I wound up telling Francis about why I was talking to him exactly, all about Mattie getting hurt and so on, and he seemed to understand completely, and swore to me that he would never intentionally hurt Mattie. We parted with a mutual promise that Mattie would never be allowed to know anything about the Bad Touch Trio, and that we would both do our best to keep him from being hurt. I think, that that was the most civil conversation I have ever had with him. For the most part, you can see the happiness that the three of them have now. Antonio and Lovino seem fairly happy together even though Lovino seems to have a sort of bitchy, ice queeney type personality; occasionally you can catch Lovino being very sweet and loving to Antonio, but it's quite rare. Gilbert is rarely seen without his brother, and by default without Feliciano, they laugh a lot and Gilbert appears to have a thing for Elizabeta, rumours fly around about them but unlike the rumours I don't think Elizabeta likes him anymore than as a friend. For a while, Francis was on his own there, kind of awkwardly, but after some recent events, he hangs around with Mattie, Arthur and I. Personally, I have never seen him happier than he is while being around us. It looks kind of like the Bad Touch Trio got their individual happy endings.

Nevertheless, every now and then, the three of them will look towards each other with a small sad smile on their faces. It's really quite obvious that they miss being friends with each other, and I feel kinda bad for the hole that's there in each of the three of them, where a really unique relationship used to be. I guess, it would sort of be like if I wasn't allowed to have Mattie in my life anymore.

But, I agree with Francis, someday they'll be friends again.

Someday soon.

* * *

"Mr. Jones?"

I look up sharply, "Ah! Yes, present!"

"I understand that Mr. Jones, but I was wondering if you would stop your aimless daydreaming and come solve this equation up here on the board? If you have the time that is."

I got so completely lost in thinking about this Bad Touch Trio business that I spaced out and couldn't hear anything, this happens sometimes. Okay, well, maybe really quite often. But, it's an upper level math class, so erm, yes. Sort of like an Honours class, but so much harder, they're a level above AICE classes (I have been at this school for almost a year and I still have no idea what in hell that means) sort of like Running Start within high school. "Oh, ah, yes."

I look up at the question on the board, it's really quite long and looks akin to something that was on a homework sheet a few weeks ago.

[5x2 + 2/x3 - 4cos x] dx =

O-oh. Well, ahem. Okay so, how did I do it last time? It looks really quite familiar, and I would totally appreciate it if everyone _would just stop staring at me oh my god, it's making this incredibly difficult!_

_Okay Alfred, it's alright, think back to how you did it last time. Okay, so you move that over there, alright, then put that there, and move this down there, and then, okay you put this there, and okeydokey, there's this thing here, and we add this to this right? Yeah, or maybe you subtract it? No, that doesn't sound right. Now, we go here, and back there. And finally move this here..._

5/3 x^3 - 1/x^2 - 4sin x

"Nailed it!" I'm really quite proud of this one actually, usually up in front of the class doing things I get nervous and fuck it up, but today has been a good day for Alfred Jones. I look over at the teacher with my hands on my hips and smile at the half-blind glasses-wearing, red faced space potato looking teacher. Who looks super surprised at how easily and quickly I finished it. He looks at the board, to a piece of paper on his desk, to me, and then the board again. I really want to do a victory dance right now, but this guy has despised me all year and I'm not too sure why, so I don't think I will.

"Well done _Mister _Jones, you can take your seat now." he has a nasty scowl, and pretty much growls at me, but regardless I damn near fucking skip back to my seat. If you couldn't tell, I'm really quite pleased with myself. Pretty much the whole class stares at me, as though they can't believe I got that right, but really indefinite integrals aren't that hard. Besides, finals start tomorrow, (who places finals the week that school ends I mean really?) and I have been studying hardcore when I find the time to. I also forced Mattie to study with me. Francis came by default, and it turned into a let's-have-a-study-sleepover-in-Alfred's-room. I'm not saying I didn't have a good time, Francis brought these delicious snacks with him and overall we had a lot of fun taking the board from the _Candy Land _game that was laying around in a closet located in the boys' dorm lounge and turned it into this totally epic study-type thing. The game pieces are army men, and it's not for just one subject, we have about twenty different subjects in the deck. Things tend to get _extremely _competitive and one time Mattie lost a shirt and was pantsed. Fucking hilarious. I glance over towards to window where Arthur sits and he's smiling at me. Fucking _smiling _at me. In _public_. This never happens. Ever. I told you today was a good day.

* * *

Anyways, it feels like forever when the six hours of torture (okay whatever school) ends and I zip off towards my room to clean up and get ready for Francis and Mattie to come over and play the _Candy Land _game thing again.

"Hey! Hey! Wait! Alfred wait!"

I stop and see Arthur running towards me, when he finally catches up he stands there for a bit with his hands on his knees, panting. Maybe he doesn't get out much? I mean, we have phys ed together but, I don't think I've ever seen him do too much running.

"W-what are you doing this evening?"

I beam, "Mattie and Francis are coming to my room and we're going to do this studying thing we made, it's a lot of fun, there's snacks and soda and stuff. You should come, it's a lot of fun!" I'm speaking at about a thousand miles a minute, which is typical when I get particularly excited about something.

"W-when is it?"

"Mmm, usually everyone goes to their rooms, gets out of their uniform and puts on something comfortable, grabs something to eat, and we meet up at around six or so."

"O-okay, I'll see you there then. Goodbye, Mister Alfred F. Jones~" he turns around and starts to walk away, looking kind of... determined. Like he has something important to do. Oh well, I'll be seeing him later and really, that's what matters. Now... On the intense state of disaster that you could call my room...

* * *

"So, how do I play this?" Arthur's holding up a small green army man, one of the cool ones that's supposed to look as though he's throwing a grenade all hero-like.

"Well, uhm, you sort of follow the main rules of the actual _Candy Land _game, but you sort of just pick a card and solve whatever question is on it, and if you get it right, you move a couple of spaces."

"Oh, sounds easy enough."

I smile at him, "It is, but just a warning, it gets really quite competitive, Mattie lost a shirt and was pantsed one time."

"Hey! You said you wouldn't bring that up!"

The rest of the night goes fairly smoothly, full of laughing and Arthur understanding what we meant by things getting quite competitive. Everyone is laughing and joking and having a good time, remembering stuff from throughout the school year, like when one kid when streaking across the soccer field during the middle of a game screaming something about London pride; and when some kid tripped and landed face first in Elizabeta's lap she screamed and hit him with a frying pan which was also hilarious but really really quite terrifying I mean really the look on her face. We sit there in my room for hours, playing over and over and over again, arguing over whether or not a question was right, and about the painfully obvious fact that the Calculus II teacher looks like a lumpy space potato. I'm not too sure why, but I can see us living together like this, as a family almost. Mattie looks so incredibly happy. Laughing and smiling this huge smile that I rarely see, Arthur too. And Francis, he just looks like there's no place else that he would rather be.

This, will be just one of many perfect moments, I hope. I convince everyone to let me get a picture of us together, smiling like a bunch of idiots. I take several more, a bunch of solo ones, Arthur smiling, Mattie laughing, Francis "ohonhonhon"ing with a big ass grin on his face. At one point, Arthur swipes the camera from me and gets a picture of me, beaming at him, then one of the two of us together, and one of Mattie and Francis together.

God knows how long it was until every single one of us went out like a light, one after another, falling into a nice blissful sleep on my bedroom floor.

Like I said, absolutely perfect.

* * *

To be honest, I know nothing about indefinite integrals.

I looked it up on Google. I got the problem and answer from an online textbook. But, if you can do Calculus stuff good for you. That's totally awesome.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

This took a really long time to finish after getting really bad writer's block, and I apologize in advance to anyone who speaks and/or knows someone who speaks/has to speak sign language.

Have fun with this one! And I will do my best to keep updating! So, uhm you know the drill with reviews and stuff.

Also, thanks a ton for your lovely comments~

* * *

It's fairly surreal to wake up and find your arm slung around the sleeping form of the person you love. I mean, his face is like three centimeters away from my own. If that doesn't startle you when you wake up then you're weird. Particularly when a huge pair of green eyes are staring back at you. I mean, _come on _I did not need to be startled this early in the morning.

"Mph, what time is it?"

"I don't know." I stare at him, can he _not _look at me like that, he's looking at me as though I'm the most interesting thing he has ever seen and it's really starting to freak me out. Just holy shit way too close, my personal space has been invaded by a really attractive British guy and it's making me uncomfortable.

"How long have you been here?"

"All night apparently, and whisper Francis and Matthew are still sleeping."

I sit up, and look about my room, which has evidence of last night all over the place, over towards my dark red (Mattie picked it out) bean bag chair is a big mess of army men that was supposed to be a big battle something like the Revolutionary War except it was France and Canada against England and America. Truly a battle of epic proportions. Especially because Francis got frustrated and this happened:

_Mattie: "Francis, keep your shirt on!"_

_Francis: "Non!" _

Fucking hilarious. He only got frustrated because the English and Americans won like badasses. Which we are. Any ways, a few feet from there, near the closet Mattie and Francis are pretty much draped over each other.

"Bleck, they're all over each other."

"It's gross I know."

In the middle is the _Candy Land _game, the cards spread out all over the place, army men in really weird places (one is sticking out of Mattie's shoe, and there are four more in one of my socks) and generally a discombobulated disaster. I finally find my clock, and it's...

"Why in hell are we awake at four-thirty in the morning?" I hiss at Arthur, gently but confused.

"I don't know. I woke up about ten minutes ago and have been laying here staring at you."

I look back at him and frown mumbling, "That explains why I woke up. I can't sleep when people stare at me."

"Really?"

"Yes really, I went to summer camp once, it was the worst experience of my life. The counselor in our cabin was an insomniac, and I didn't sleep at all for a week and a half. When I finally got home I slept for three days straight and when I woke up Mattie said he was convinced that I had died." I sigh and look up at the ceiling, that really was just absolutely horrifying, the counselor guy would randomly be signing stuff and at first I could have sworn he was having an arm seizure. But, then again, all sign language looks like an arm seizure in progress to me.

"Oh. I, er, I won't do it again."

I look down from the ceiling at Arthur, if he were any paler he would pretty much shine in the darkness. Which is sort of creepy, ugh, now I have goosebumps. Go away go away go away. Stupid brain, creeping me out like that.

Any way, have Arthur's eyes always been this big? I don't think so. Maybe it's the lighting. Yeah, definitely the lighting. At some point, some one must have gotten up and turned off the light because if it weren't for the moon (BAD MOON MOON) it would be pitch black in here.

Is he... shivering?

"Hey Arthur..." being really quiet is sort of difficult and everything that comes out is just mumbling.

"Yes, love?"

"Are you cold? I mean, you're shivering, and my blanket-"

"Duvet."

"Whatever. My blanket is big enough for two people." I try to put on my best kicked-puppy face because I'm kind of cold myself and would rather not lay on this uncomfortable floor without at least having a blanket and a pillow or two. Or ten. I really like pillows okay? Especially those awesome little decorative ones, it's just excellent to lay back on your bed and bam! You are surrounded by the awesomeness that makes up the modern pillow. They also make great ear muffs for you and your brother when you're six years old and your parents are screaming at each other downstairs. As you can see, they have many practical uses.

Any who, Arthur looks sort of confused at first then as though a sudden realization had come, finally noticing that he's been trembling like he has the heebie jeebies.

"Oh, why yes that would be nice."

I push myself up, nearly falling down because at some point the entirety of my left leg fell asleep. Go figure. There's a bit of a loud _clunk! _As my (ridiculously huge) cell phone hits the floor, Mom insisted upon getting us smartphones which is really silly because we barely use the damn things in the first place, I mean for the most part the only time they are used is to ask what the other is interested in eating. The sad thing is, is that I'm not lying.

I throw the blanketduvetwhateverthefuckyouwannacallit up into the air and onto Arthur, who sputters and scowls at me. Okay now, (insert Mission Impossible theme here) let's creep over to the closet, quietly open the door, carefully dig through all the shit that's in here, and aha here's the ugly beige blanket they first provided me with, no seriously it's the color of vomit absolutely disgusting, now carefee carefee shut the closet door, drape the blanket over the two of them, and zip back over to Arthur and the wonderfulness that makes up cuddling and a warm blanket. It doesn't take very long to get comfortable, well after the awkward-spooning? Or just face to face? Or... I don't even know-period of time, it's just comfortable and nice and warm, but most of all it's quiet. All still and calm like.

I love it.

* * *

Exams were a lot more stressful than I thought they would be. You only have three days to take them-Tuesday through Thursday-and each one is so ridiculously long just holy hell. Particularly Calculus II. Fucking terrifying. Pages upon pages of all these freaky equations. It's not that they were terribly difficult, no not at all, they were really easy after Mattie had pounded all the formulas and cosigns and so on into the inner workings of my subconscious. I forced myself to listen because he was holding a hockey stick and when a wild Mattie wielding a hockey stick appears you do one of two things: a)book it in the opposite direction; or b)do everything he says without question. If you haven't seen him play hockey you need to. It's fucking startling because he goes from sweet, quiet Mattie to holy fuck bitch get out of his way or you're gonna get fuuuuucked uuuup. If I remember right we (Mom and I, I forget where Dad had gone off to) were at one of Mattie's games and I stood up on my chair and was yelling that. I mean really, it must have been a bit disconcerting for the people around us, some ten year old boy standing on his seat screaming at the top of his lungs. Y'know, no big deal. Actually at the time it was a huge deal, particularly because Mattie's team won. We were freaking out in the parking lot, jumping up and down, yelling, laughing being kids. I think that was the first game they had won all season, Mattie said I must have sent out some freaky good vibes with all of my screaming and yelling and general goofiness.

Any who, being Arthur's boyfriend is sort of... Not necessarily frustrating, more strange. For the most part it's how we were before all of this dating business, except he sits next to me in all of our classes now (which is totally awesome because he seems really quite impressed at my drafting skills), although occasionally we'll be walking together and out of nowhere it's like 'oh hey we're making out now'. Confusing but nice. Particularly when he drags me off to an unexpected picnic and we spend the entire time making out. Mattie and Francis seem to be doing okay, probably better than they seem. I mean, they go on dates a lot, and by that I'm talking about going out to lunch almost every day. Like fancy restaurant out to lunch. I think if this keeps up Mattie will die from romanticism, or well, maybe find himself getting married at a very young age, what an interesting argument that'll be. You see, our Dad is kind of... Really really homophobic. And, uhm, we're not allowed to see one of our uncles anymore. He was such an awesome dude too.

Back to the present, it's awfully strange to see everyone leaving the school. People are signing annuals, and exchanging phone numbers, talking to their parents in different languages, getting in fancy cars, bickering with siblings, it goes on and on. Over in a corner, not too far from the tree I'm hanging out in, is Mattie and Francis the Fuckface (although, he is kind of a nice person) talking. If I remember right Francis is either staying somewhere in the depths of the city, going out to the country side or flying his way back to France for the summer. I can't really hear what they're saying but it looks like French so I wouldn't understand it any ways. Mattie looks kind of sad, wearing his I-will-get-what-I-want-whether-you-like-it-or-not- pouting look. Most of the time it works, even on me, I tried to say "No!" to that face several times and it never worked out for me. Or anyone else. I feel a little bad though, Arthur's staying here with us, while Francis is going away, but from the looks of it he's promised something along the lines of visiting at some point or another. Which will be good, because knowing Mattie he'll get awful lonely, and he left Mr. Kumajirou back home in the States. Thinking about it, we'll be here for the 4th of July. Shit. I wonder... Can you get fireworks here? I mean, back home we always have had this _huge _party, with tons of fireworks and food and people. Most of the time Mattie and I were the youngest people there, and the rest were all adults that Mom and Dad knew from business, even with that though we had a great time. Every year it was my self-appointed duty to blow something up, a lot of firecrackers were involved and one time we blew a hole in the road! It was crazy awesome, there was shrapnel everywhere! We had cuts on our faces, and at first were sort of scared and confused, but then wound up laughing, brushing all the chunks of pavement off of our coats.

"What are you doing up there?"

"What? Oh, shit!" Hanging upside down in the tree, sort of stuck actually, I can see Arthur staring at me. "Why hello there good sir, I'm kind of stuck now."

"You didn't answer my question, Alfred."

I stop trying to untangle myself from all these damn tree branches, and focus more on Arthur and you know keeping my shirt from falling off which is a lot more difficult than it sounds. I feel like Seborga from Hetalia in the episode of _Hetalia The Beautiful World _where he goes to meet Wy after she first becomes a micronation. Well, minus the ketchup. I am stuck though.

"Well you see, I got kind of bored inside and decided to come outside since it's all nice out today. I was wandering around the campus when I found this tree that looked perfect for climbing, so I clambered up into it, and was sitting watching everyone leave. I had looked over and was so totally not creepily staring over at Mattie and Francis. Then, you came along, scared me and now I'm stuck in this tree." He sort of just stares up at me blankly, I don't see how he isn't hot, he's standing out here in nice tan colored slacks, an off-white dress shirt, and a bluey-green sweater vest. I really do need to raid his closet and toss some street-type clothes in there. Maybe some awesome punk rocker type stuff.

"Do you need any help?"

"I, well, I hadn't of thought about that. Maybe. It depends on how stuck I am, these pants aren't really the best for tree climbing." Which is true, this is not the first time I've gotten stuck in a tree while wearing these pants. Actually, this entire outfit, the last time I got stuck Mattie had to cut me out of the tree. Stupid pants. "I feel like Seborga from Hetalia."

"What in hell are you talking about?"

"Oh! Hetalia, it's this really really funny anime. And, in the last episode a new character showed up! Well, two actually. His name is Seborga, and he was in the same position as me right now. Except, with ketchup, and Italian."

Arthur looks so confused that it would be funny if I wasn't getting really really dizzy. "I don't know what you're going on about but alright."

"I should probably get down, I'm really dizzy and wow were you always this fuzzy before?" Did I lose my glasses? I don't think so, after I get down it may or not be a good idea to seek some medical attention. I dunno, hey, I wonder if I move my right leg a little backwards if my leg will free up just a little bit-"Holy shit!"

* * *

Can I just say that concrete is _not _a very pleasant thing to land on? I mean, it feels like my back has been broken into a million pieces.

"Hey, uhm, what just happened?"

"You fell out a bloody tree! God so help me, what is wrong with you!"

"Well, a lot of things actually."

Arthur sighs, and shakes his head while looking down at me. I give a brave smile, doing my best to sit up, which isn't really working out. I pull off my glasses to rub my eyes, and on a bit of a closer inspection the left lens has a long crack in it. Did I bring any spare pairs of glasses? I doubt it, maybe Mattie has a pair that I can use. Either way, my glasses are busted.

After about five minutes of bickering and pulling, we're finally headed to the student lounge and laughing about the whole thing. Which is good, because I mean, I don't know. With the crack in my glasses, the left side of Arthur looks sort of funny, like part of him is sliding off of the other.

"You look funny."

"How so?"

"The crack in my glasses makes the left side of you all wonky looking."

"Wonky is not a word."

"Yes it is."

"No, Alfred. I am afraid it is not."

"Pssshhh, it's totally a word, you British dudes just haven't accepted the awesomeness of American English yet."

"Don't get me started on American English versus the Queen's English."

I can't help but laugh at him, thinking about it American English is pretty much Queen's English's teenaged son/daughter/languagebeing. Seriously, you. You wonderful gorgeous person reading these words. Think about it. It makes so much sense. I mean, as an American I can totally vouch for us being twisted rebellious little fuckers, and so of course we've kinda gone all "fuck you! and your metric system! oh, and fuck your language!" Like this one post war I saw on my favorite website once. It was an argument about eggplant versus aubergine. It wound up being a four country thing, England, America, France, and Canada. Absolutely hysterical. **  
**

"Hey Arthur..."

"What?"

"Did you know that this one time I slapped Mattie in the face, sat up, and had a religious conversion in my sleep?"

"Wait, what?"

It's true, it happened. Another thing that makes me laugh like an idiot. Even though I fell out of a tree, I can already tell that this is going to be a fantastic day.

* * *

We ate pancakes for a week straight. WE ATE PANCAKES FOR EVERY MEAL FOR AN ENTIRE SEVEN DAYS. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH I HATE PANCAKES RIGHT NOW. I fucking HATE fucking PANCAKES. I can't STAND THEM. Never ever EVER again. No more.

"Mattie, please, something else anything else, no more pancakes. Let's go to the store or even better McDonald's. Please Mattie you don't understand." Okay, I get it, I'm whining like a little bitch but, you try the pancake business. Any more and I will go insane. So many pancakes...

"How much money do you have?"

"Uhm... Let me check my wallet.." I sort of fall out of my chair and onto the floor trying to wrestle my pants into giving up my wallet, "Ah, a coupla ones, a ten, a twenty, and two fifties. I haven't gone out and bought anything all year." Which is true, I never really needed anything to be honest. I have my laptop, vending machines spread out all over campus, and internet connection. In all honesty, I could totally live this way. Indefinitely.

"Are they in pounds or dollars?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Do they look funny?"

I look at them better, ah that's right we had to switch our monies at the airport when we first got here which was a hassle. "Yeah, they do."

"Then you have about one hundred thirty five pounds."

"Woah. Mattie, how did you know I have _exactly _five ones?"

"I didn't."

"Are you psychic?"

"No."

"Are you absolutely sure?"

"Alfred."

"No seriously! Are you? You have to be. Were you abducted by aliens and-"

"STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS."

Oh, uhm, this happens sometimes, I kind of... Get carried away with my question asking. If you couldn't tell already, my thoughts have a sort of broken directional compass. One minute I'll be completely focused on the situation, and 3.67 seconds later I'll be thinking about say, Aliens for example. I can talk about aliens for hours upon hours and never get bored. Just, the thought of something equally or more intelligent than ourselves that's just barely out of our reach is absolutely fascinating to me. Any way, this school has separate dorms for students staying over the summer. FUCKING THREE BEDROOM APARTMENTS. That's where we're going to be hanging out this summer. Oh! And there's a garden in the back, well, the space where a garden _should _be. With a little care, and some love the back yard-type place can potentially be gorgeous. Like my garden back home, speaking of which... I wonder if the maid lady who cleans our house has been taking care of it? I left Mom month-by-month instructions for caring for it. I mean, there's stuff you have to do all year long to keep it nice and healthy. Turning over the flower beds in the fall, cultivating all the dirt, and setting up the planters and beds in February before spring comes, then helping all the seeds germinate in the greenhouse in March and April, then planting the seedlings around mid-May, and the rest of the summer simply taking care of them. I really like gardening okay? It gives me something to do.

"Hey, Mattie, can we go get-"

"Yes we can go get seeds for your flowers, if you put on shoes we'll leave right now."

"Really!? Fuck yeah!"

So, if I may say one thing, I would like to say that London confuses the everliving fuck out of me. We have been wandering around trying to find a feed store for about two hours now and keep getting more confused I mean, I have seen the same four stores at least six times.

"We need a Londonder."

"What in hell does that mean?"

"It means we need someone who lives in Britain, preferably London, who can help us."

"Arthur." We look at each other and say in unison. Mattie glances at the phone in my hand, and sort of mumbles, "Do you have his number?"

"I... Oh, well, somewhere..." Do I? I honestly can't remember, I mean our schedules were exactly the same so, I never really ever had to text him. Okay now. please contacts... Please don't fail me now...

"Oi." Hello big scary gruff German accent! (cue inner screaming)

I look up into the pale face of Ludwig Beilschmidt. I don't know him too well, and the only times I've ever really made conversation with him was just for Student Council stuff.  
"Oh, well, hello," I gulp, what am I supposed to say? "Fancy seeing you here." What the hell? Since when am I a Brit? I don't use that word, well, only when talking about, back on topic! Focus!

"Ja, älterer Bruder and I went out to get some groceries and to pay bills."

"Oh, fun stuff. We're just looking for a feed store." Ludwig looks at me confusedly, so I kind of have to elaborate, "A farmer's supply store."

I look down at the pavement, and back up to those freaky flat colored ice-blue eyes and I swear they're trying to burn a hole through my soul! There's a bunch of loud footsteps headed our way with a: "Luuuuudwig!~ I, your älterer Bruder got the phone bill paid. That makes two down, three to go."

Oh good God.

Gilbert.

As in Gilbert Beilschmidt of the Bad Touch Trio.

Shit. Every time I see him a funny feeling bubbles up in the pit of my stomach. I just-

"Ow! For fuck's sake!" Mattie elbows my side _very _viciously, which fucking hurts! And hisses in my ear, "His wrist! Look at Gilbert's wrist!"

I let my eyes flick over to Gilbert's right wrist which is... Littered... With scars and little red marks...

Oh. My. GOD. It honestly takes everything I have _not _to run over to him and grab his wrist yelling, "why!?" I never would have thought... yet, the more closely I look at him the signs are everywhere. Just... Oh my God. Does Francis know? Does Antonio know? Does _Ludwig _know? Does anyone know? I'm bursting with a mixture of excitement, over having had found someone like me who would understand, guilt, and being really fucking sad. I mean, is this because of the friendship he lost when the Bad Touch Trio disbanded? Or... Was it going on even before then? If you look really, quite closely, after that first time of him raising the receipt over his head and waving at us, he has his right arm pressed very closely to his side. Which is very normal, because I mean, wearing a short-sleeved shirt makes it a little more difficult to hide the scars and whatnot. And, he just has a very guarded stance, arms crossed, feet close together, and so on and so forth.

This is crazy surreal, I feel like I'm in an episode of _The Twilight Zone _minus the bad music. But anyways, after I kind of stand there clutching the strap of my messenger bag and gaping at Gilbert with my mouth open looking like a cross between a fish and a dead octopus, Mattie asks for directions. And, surprisingly Gilbert is overjoyed to help and grins at Mattie the whole way there, even looking sort of sad when they leave us at the store. Does Gilbert have a crush on Mattie? I can see why he would, and thinking about it, I guess Mattie would be his type. Well, maybe. I don't know. Does Gilbert even have a type?

The feed store that they left us at is small and cute, it only has a few aisles and near the door are some big buckets filled with different types of baby birds. Chickens, ducklings, turkeys and geese. We had geese once, they chased us around the yard and it was just really quite unpleasant. Anyway, we pick out some vegetables, lots of flowers, particularly sunflowers and sugar peas. After we pay and leave we get lost again, to the point where we called Arthur and had him come help us find a supermarket, then finally back to the school's summer dorms. Which are apartments. The school has an entire apartment complex as it's summer dormitories. It's really sort of awesome. The three of us have our own little three bedroom"flat" as Arthur calls it, we picked the one on the ground floor which has a sliding glass door at the back and a little back yard/garden space. It's really quite "splendid" or whatever.

If Francis were here, we really would be a little family, and the more I dwell on it the more and more I like the thought of that.

* * *

Days turn to weeks and our garden is finally looking nice, I have carefully watched over them, from seedlings to little plantlets. I don't know exactly what is in the fertilizer Arthur bought but, whatever it is has made the sunflowers grow like crazy. It's really pretty, all the purples, blues and pinks. We have rows of plants, collared greens, lettuce, sugar snap peas, a very tall Russian guy waving a faucet pipe at me-

I drop everything I'm holding to scream like a little bitch.

There is a very tall Russian guy, walking towards me carrying sunflowers and a faucet pipe smiling this scary little kid smile.

And I can't stop the ungodly screaming as he comes closer and closer to me.

Is my life some sort of sick horror movie to you people?

* * *

Hetalia within Hetalia! Alfred breaks the fourth wall! Scary Russian guy shows up! Freaky cliffhanger!

I will try and see you soon my lovelies~


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Seven chapters is quite a few... For me anyways. So! I kind of sort of cried a little writing this one. I didn't mean for it to be so sad. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy the excellence of character backstories, and I shall see you soon. Oh yeah, comment and stuff.

* * *

So, you see, this is probably the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. I mean, wouldn't you freak out when a giant Russian guy holding sunflowers and a faucet pipe is smiling like a child and coming towards you? Thought so.

Mattie bursts out of the bathroom yelling, asking what the fuck is going on, then sees the Russian guy and screams, latching himself onto me when the sliding glass door is opened and the guy comes inside. There's a yelp as Arthur comes in, and a loud shattering sound as a vase is thrown, then with a slight wave of his pipe, broken into a million pieces.

"It is good seeing you, da?"

"Go away go away go away!" The three of us are screaming, Mattie's crying he's so abjectly terrified, and the Russian guy is giggling at our terror. Who does that? I mean... Seriously! Could you get any creepier?

"Make him go away! Alfred make him go away!"

"I can't! I'm too scared!"

"You're the hero! Do something!"

I... He does make a point. The Russian guy's coming closer to us again, waving that pipe around, and still wearing that childish grin that really doesn't belong on the face of such a large person. What am I supposed to do? Hit him? Yell at him? Well, I've stopped screaming at least. And, why does he seem so familiar? The Russian guy. Tall, light-beige almost silver hair, violet eyes, faint pink-colored scarf around his neck, prominent nose...

"Son of a bitch." I rub my face with my hand, and sigh. "Hello Ivan. Yes, it's good to see you."

* * *

It takes a little coaxing towards Mattie and Arthur to get them to stop freaking out and to keep Arthur from throwing things at Ivan, but it gets done and we get the full story about why exactly Ivan Braginsky was in our backyard. According to him, he had run away from his sisters about a week ago in search for someplace to stay until school started again. The reason why he left is sort of... Glossed over. Something to do with his older sister Maria, and his younger sister Natalya, an argument of sorts. He started to cry about half-way through the story which was really disconcerting for everyone, particularly when Mattie burst into tears as well. The strangest thing happened though, after noticing Mattie's tears Ivan leaned over and gave him one of the sunflowers that had been on the coffee table. Naturally, that made Mattie cry even harder. You see when other people cry he starts crying as well, which is really frustrating when watching cute chick flicks. Especially, The Notebook and Titanic. Annoying as hell.

Anyways, the story goes along the lines of this, Ivan had come home one day and Maria and Natalya were arguing...

_"They were arguing, about me. Natalya had a knife in hand and it was very scary. I couldn't stop them. I said to them, 'Sisters, what is going on? I do not understand.' Natalya looked at me and smiled, setting the knife down, she said to me sweetly, "Ah Vanya, it is nothing dear brother. Come, let's eat.' Something was not right, my little sister Nata can be very scary at times and the look on Masha's face was very sad, but with much fear in her eyes. Alfred, you must understand now, Nata and Masha get along, but not always. Nyet, not always. We had eaten dinner that night in much silence. Masha said nothing, and Nata glared at her the whole time. It wasn't until very much later that their arguing began again, I had just gotten in my bed ready to dream of happier times. There was a crash and much yelling. I came down the stairs very quietly and followed Nata's yelling to the sitting room. Nata was saying something about Mama and Papochka and where they had gone off to for so very long. Masha was crying and crying, saying that she was sorry and that she tried to stop them. I knew they had left some time ago, when I was still very small. After they left Masha took care of the three of us, she tucked Nata and I in our beds every night and sang us soft lullabies. She grew up so very fast, even though she is only two years older than I. It was very sad for us even a year after Mama and Papochka were gone, our house came to feel big and empty. Nata yelled and yelled at Masha about Mama and Papochka, she said she watched them leave and that Masha did nothing to stop them, she said that Masha did nothing to help us after they left. That the only helpful thing she had done for us was to get us into a pretty school in Angliya where they would give us money to help us live until us three were no longer schooling. It was very much pain to hear those words, Masha did her very best for us. She grew things, and taught us many things school could not. _

_"She was too young to work, and had to use money that Mama left for collegiate schooling so we could have power and clothing and nice things. Masha did everything she could to make sure that we would never be separate from each other, pretending to be Mama and having me be Papochka when the school called asking about why our clothes were torn, and why we had no lunch to eat. Masha told very beautiful lies, and would cry asking me for forgiveness. When I would ask what needed forgiving she would never say, she just wept. Nata said nothing of the times Masha stayed from school to take care of her when she had the chicken pox and the time she had pneumonia. Masha and I were scared that Nata would never get better, but even so Masha stayed by her side never sleeping and hardly eating to make sure that Nata would become well again. When Nata was no longer with sickness she cried with happiness. I think that Nata does not wish to remember those things from wishing that it had been Mama by her side, with Papochka coming and reading her stories instead of me. It is very sad to think these things, but I am sure that they are true. Even with how little Nata was she loved Mama and Papochka with all of her heart. It may not seem so on the outside, but Nata has a very big heart, which can be broken very easily. She puts on cold airs to keep people away, I asked her why once and she replied that she kept everyone away so she would never have to leave us. Kept them away so no one could steal her heart away from Mama and Papochka. Why she misses them so much I do not know, I have heard her cry at night, calling to Mama and Papochka asking them to come back to us._

_"When she cries she pleads to God to send them home. She asks why they left, why they would hurt her so. Nata cries and says that her heart will always broken and for God to forgive her for not loving Masha and I like she should. By the end of their argument she was crying, falling to her knees and screaming for God to give them back. Cursing God for taking them away, when we know that they left because they wanted to. Mama and Papochka left us behind on purpose. I heard them tell Masha they were on a mission, and to not worry, they may come back, but as they left through that cursed front door Mama looked down at Masha and whispered, 'We will always love you, no matter where we are.' She begged them not to go, running down the driveway after them, screaming and pleading for them to turn around saying that we needed them, before she could reach the edge she fell down and cried, screaming to the heavens up above as snow fell silently around our house why He must be so cruel and hurt us so. Masha was ten, I was eight, and Nata was seven. I could not bear to watch my lovely sisters cry, so I grabbed my coat and ran away. I ran away and cried, I knew the only place I could go was back to school, for after my sisters there is no family left for me. Every night as I slept on the train I saw my sisters' weeping faces, tormenting me. When I finally made it back to the school the only person I could trust was you, who has been so very kind to me while others have not. I must thank you Alfred Jones, for you are the nicest person I have ever had the pleasure of meeting."_

I would never have guessed that only a few kind words would do so much for a person. At the end of the story everyone was bawling, I mean, it was just so sad and painful to hear. I never would've thought that there was so much behind his childish smile. People seem to be surprising me all over the place since Mattie and I came here, back home everyone was more or less always what they appeared to be. Occasionally you would have the straight As student with an abusive parent, or the other 4.0 student who succumbs to the pressure and ends up hurting themselves. Yet, everyone I've met here is so incredibly complex. First, Francis Bonnefoy and the Bad Touch Trio business, then Arthur and his drinking, then Gilbert with his wrist, and now Ivan Braginsky and his sisters. I want to help all of them, like the hero I intend to become. And, I don't mean a superhero who helps out of obligation but, I mean a hero who helps others because he _genuinely wants to. _Which is something you don't see as often as you should. I know for a fact that I can't bring Ivan's parents back, and I know that I can't change the past. But, there's always the option to try. With the internet it's really easy to find someone, and I can take Arthur away from his family and make him happy.

I can't help everyone, but there's nothing that will stop me from trying.

* * *

For now, Ivan is staying in my room and I'm sharing a bed with Arthur. Ivan was really helpful, he cleaned up the glass mess, then disappeared for a while to come back with onions, cabbage, pulled pork, and some strawberries and raspberries. Then, he spent the rest of the day making pirozhki-s (he says the Russian plural is pirazhok). First fruit-filled ones with the dough set up decoratively, then ones filled with all of the other vegetables and meat he brought from the store. They were fan-fucking-tastic. The dinner-type ones were very big, and there were quite a few of them, while the fruit-filled ones were very small, a little bigger than bite sized. While we ate, he told us about how his elder sister would make them all the time, hot in the winter, and cold in the summer, and how his were nothing compared to Maria's. Eventually, we all were telling stories about food, memories, recipes, anything was fair-game. All the Russian recipes sounded sort of strange, but it was fun hearing all of it. Stories of when Maria tried to teach Ivan and Natalya how to make rabbit stew and the disaster that followed. Arthur telling us about how once he mistook bourbon for olive-oil and mixed it into some beef stew he was making for him and his younger brother Peter, and how they both got drunk and were acting really silly. Mattie told the birthday cake story, which had everyone laughing. We were up for hours just sitting and talking, it didn't take very long for Mattie, Arthur and I to lose the air of unease around Ivan and after that was out of the picture it just felt like an old friend had come to visit. We had Ivan agree to call his sisters in the morning, just to let them know where he was and that after everything had blown over he would go home to them.

For a long while, Arthur and I just sort of were laying here in Arthur's bed staring at each other. Green eyes to blue eyes. It was awkward at first, but once the bed got warmer, Arthur moved closer and gave me a slightly awkward hug. It's really nice to be here like this, cuddling all really close like, and peacefully falling into a deep sleep.

I couldn't ever imagine being anywhere else in the world than right here.

* * *

"Asshole!"

"Bitch!"

Mom and Dad are fighting,_ again. _This is the third night in a row. My bedroom door creaks open, with the shuffling of feet and something being dragged on the carpet, then it's shut quietly. A small, apprehensive voice murmurs, "Mommy and Daddy are fighting again."

Mattie crawls up into my bed, bringing Mr. Kumajiro with him, and pulls the blankets up over both of our heads, wincing at almost every word Mom and Dad say. I reach over and hold Mattie's hand, trying to make him feel some semblance of safety, three nights of arguing, three nights of staying awake in my bed together. Even with our heads under pillows and hands over our ears we can never seem to block out the yelling and hurtful words.

"I don't understand, why would anyone say those things to some one else? Mattie, I don't understand, mommies and daddies are supposed to love each other right?"

"I think so, at least, every one else's mommies and daddies love each other."

"Then... Why don't ours? I thought they did, Mommy and Daddy were always so nice to each other before so why not now? Did we do something bad to make them so angry?"

"Maybe. But what could we have done?"

We stare at each other in silence for a little, listening to the fight, all those hurtful words tossed back and forth. Sometimes there's the sound of breaking glass that makes both of us jump and try to hold back cries, but mostly all that we can hear is arguing. During all of their fights we hear a slapping sound sometimes, and then someone crying. As the yelling turns to screaming we both start to cry, whispering to each other,

"It's our fault."

"What did we do?"

"Why are you so mad at each other?"

"Mommies and daddies are supposed to love each other very much."

The fight goes on long into the night, like all of them do, only ending with the slam of the front door and the sounds of a bottle clinking against a glass. Dad always does this after a fight, he drinks until he talks funny and acts silly, then calls Mom and tries persuading her to come back. Asking to come back for us, saying it was his fault.

"It's not Daddy's fault, Alfred." Mattie looks at me, tears streaming down our faces while we whisper in unison, "It's ours."

It was this way almost every night for ten years. During every fight we said the same words, "It's our fault. We did something bad."

Even as we grew up to be fifteen and sixteen Mattie always climbed into my bed and we whispered those terrifying words. By that point, I had been hurting myself for quite some time, actually, I had done a lot of things to myself, from starving myself to excessive exercise, all the way to hurting myself so badly once that I nearly had to go to the hospital. And, it wasn't just me. Mattie was dealing with problems of his own as well. I don't think he ever cut himself, but I know for a fact that just like me, he beat himself up on the inside. We never felt.. Good enough. We figured that things would get better if we were perfect. We pushed towards perfect grades, strove for the perfect weight and skinniness. Did our best to put on the image of what the perfect sons looked like. And it was painful.

So incredibly painful.

To watch your own brother go through exactly what you went through, watch him sit staring at nothing and knowing he's been beating himself up in the inside for God knows how long. We tried looking for help, we really did. But, there wasn't anything there that told us what to do if we were the ones beating ourselves up. They had everything from parents who were beating you up physically to what to do if you were hurting yourself. We never found anything towards mental abuse. Especially when it was you making yourself feel bad. We forced ourselves to stop after I came home to this one day,

_"Mattie, I'm home! Sorry for being so late, baseball practice went on longer than I expected." No answer. "Mattie? You're not ignoring me are you? I said I was sorry." _

_I walk upstairs, tossing my baseball stuff in my room, and wander around the house, first checking his room then on to the bathroom, Dad's study, Mom and Dad's room, the attic. But he's no where to be found. _

_"Mattie, if this is a game it's not very funny." He's not in the living room, downstairs bathroom, laundry room, Mom's sewing room, not outside either. The last place to look is in the kitchen. _

_"Hey, Mattie I-oh my God." I swing open the kitchen door and there he is, laying on the ground with a whisk in hand as though he was about to make something. I run over and practically fall face-first onto the the tiled-floor, yelling, "Mattie? Mattie get up, come on this isn't funny, I-I, Mattie! Come on please, wake up, I don't want to have to live without you! Please, get up!" I'm crying so fucking hard right now, he's only fourteen, he can't just... Disappear from my life. I-I, fuck, I have to get him to a hospital. But, how? I can't drive, well, I can just not legally. "Fuck it, dammit! Mattie wake up! Please! Please wake up! I... I have to take you to the hospital." Mom must have carpooled to work today, because her car keys are still on their hook by the front door, and it takes me five minutes to very carefully put Mattie in the passenger seat, buckled up and everything, open the garage door, start the car, back out, shut the garage door and begin speeding my way to the hospital. I do my best not to go too far above the speed limit but that's kind of hard when you feel as though your only brother is dying right next to you. _

_It takes thirty agonizing minutes of speeding through town for me to get him to the hospital. When I finally get in there, I'm kind of crying and yelling and generally making a ruckus. It doesn't take very long for me to explain to the nurses what happened, and have them get him some medical attention. I follow them, and at first they won't let me into his room, something about being in the way, then one of them guides me to some chairs a few feet away for me to sit on. I reluctantly comply, and spend the next few hours curled up in a ball crying. After maybe two hours or so, a Japanese nurse leads me by the hand to where Mattie is, and I sort of half walk-half run over to his bed and start crying even harder. They have all sorts of tubes and things with needles stuck in him, a few on the back of his hand, and one in the crook of his arm. A dark haired man tells me his name, and other things I don't listen to until he starts to explain what happened to Mattie. _

_He says something about them trying to pump his stomach and nothing coming out but stomach acid, then all sorts of stuff about blood sugar, and sodium levels, and insulin, also lots of big words I don't quite understand. The long and short of it is that Mattie hadn't eaten anything in about three days and must have passed out earlier that afternoon. With every word I start to cry harder and harder until I fall into a heap on the floor, muttering about it being my fault, how I should have gone home at the usual time regardless, it goes on until a very small voice says, "It's not your fault. It will never be your fault." _

_I stand up sort of shakily, grabbing the bed to keep standing, to see Mattie looking at me with a small smile on his face, his violet eyes looking far brighter than I've seen them in a long time. _

_"I could fucking kiss you right now."_

_"Please don't Al, that would be really weird and sort of gross." _

_One of the nurses makes me sit down, and I pull the chair as close as I can, resting my head on the bed, with Mattie petting my hair absentmindedly until I cry myself to sleep, making soft "shushing" noises the same way you would for a really little kid who was scared and upset the whole time. _

_It was about midnight when Mom woke us up by storming into the room yelling at us, something about scaring her and that we could have at least called to let her know that we had borrowed the car. I can't really comprehend what she's saying from drowsiness, and I can't really see her either meaning at some point Mattie pulled off my glasses so they wouldn't get broken. Mom yells at us until the nurses make her go into the hall and calm down because she's being a "disturbance". Funny how things work out for us nicely like that sometimes, they don't let her back inside telling her that the two of us need rest. Eventually, Mattie and I look at each other smiling some, before falling asleep again. In a blissful, dreamless sleep, for the first time in a long time, I was finally at peace with my life._

* * *

_"_Alfred, Alfred wake up, you're having a bad dream. Come on, love, wake up."

"Mattie's sick... He needs to.. He needs to go to the hospital.."

"No, he's just next door sleeping in his bed. I promise you he's safe." Gentle shaking makes me wake up some more, and I can see sort of fuzzy green orbs above me looking concerned. "What were you dreaming about Alfred?" Such a nice soft voice, like a lullaby almost.

"Mattie... Mattie was sick, and and I had to take him to the hospital, they said they said he hadn't eaten anything in three days... It... It was all my fault. If I had come home when I was supposed to, but baseball practice went on longer than I thought.." I'm just rambling on and on about the dream, as soft fingertips carefully brush bangs away my eyes.

"Okay love, let's get you some tea."

The soft voice gets up and leaves for a little while, just to come back with something that makes a quiet clinking noise. "Put on your glasses. I don't want you spilling good tea everywhere."

"Mmmkay." With my glasses on, the soft voice turns out to be Arthur, carrying a tray with two cups with saucers, a little things with sugar cubes, spoons and a tea pot. "I don't like tea."

"This kind tastes just like coffee, but it is for helping children go to sleep."

"Not a kid."

"You still need to go back to sleep. I woke up an hour ago to you muttering in your sleep, at first it was little kid speak then it turned into a more frantic nightmare-type voice."

We sit in silence for a while, drinking tea (he was right it really does taste just like coffee) and kind of staring at each other over our cups. The sleepy shit works and I get more and more drowsy, until I'm swaying back and forth slightly. Ten minutes later I flop down and curl up under the blankets, perfectly fine with sleeping again.

The last thing I sleep before I fall asleep is Arthur smiling down at me, and fuck, it's the most charming smile I've ever seen.

* * *

Oh, Ivan left early this morning, after what seemed to be a very emotional phone call to his sisters. We saw him off of course, and made sure he had some money for the train and stuff, seeing as he spent the last of the money he had on him to make us pirozhki for dinner and desert. Which was awfully nice of him. He thanked us about three hundred times for letting him stay the night and giving him some money for the trip back to Russia. On the way home, the three of us agreed that we would loads nicer than we had been when school came back in. He had to have been up at some point in the night because when I went to go water the garden and things there were four baby sunflowers planted in an area that got the most sun. There was a ring of rocks around them, and the biggest had some Cyrillic words carved into it. It didn't take too long for us to figure out what it said, they were very carefully done in fancy cursive that said:

_To my friends, may we meet again some time soon in a life that is not so painful but strong and beautiful like a sunflower_

Of course, we started crying again but, it was agreed that we would take a picture and keep it forever, that and the rock as well. There is a spot in the corner of my garden that is absolutely perfect for a small group of sunflowers to grow and be happy. Three happy sunflowers growing in peace.

"Fireworks. We need fireworks. _Al_fred, we absolutely _must _have fireworks."

Okay, so July is coming up, which is really awesome because back home it means traveling all over the place and buying as much fireworks as possible. Then, from July 1st to July 4th we just have a _huge _festival. July 1st is Canada day, and Mattie having his double-citizenship thing (I don't even know how it works okay, he was born in the States but I think Mom is mostly Canadian or something, oh, also it may be because Mom and Dad split for a while and Mom hung out in Canada with Mattie and Dad and I stayed in the States. It only lasted a year though, and _that _my friend is an entirely different story.) celebrates and has his whole "fuck yeah! I'm Canadian motherfuckers!" night, _then _on July 4th everything goes to shit. Fireworks from the time the sun comes up to long after it goes down. Mom and Dad's friends come over and do their cocktail party thing, while Mattie and I run off to the hillside that's a ways away from our place with backpacks stuffed with fountains, firecrackers, roman candles, everything we could get our hands on. About two years ago we decided to bring a duffel bag filled with snacks, and sleeping bags and things.

"But, _where _are we going to get some?" Mattie's been whining at me for the past hour or so, and honestly I don't know any British type holidays that involve fireworks. I mean, during November there was that one day, I think it was called Guy Fawkes night or something. I heard a lot of different wordings "Bonfire Night" "Guy Fawkes Day" "Firework Night". All in all it was really strange, every now and again a bonfire would pop up with a stuffed doll on a stake. Mattie and I had gone out to see what the ruckus was and wandered into town and turned around yelling: "Noooooooooooope!"

Anyways, we are stuck with the predicament of where in hell can we get some fireworks? I am fairly sure that the English dudes here wouldn't be very pleased about selling fireworks to Americans for Independence Day. I get the feeling they're still pretty pissed about that. I don't really see why though, that's yesterday's news. I mean, that was 237 years ago. Moving on, we need fireworks period. Mattie and I look at each other, to the hallway, and back to each other.

"Aaarrrrrthuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrr!"

"What the bloody hell do you want! I'm busy!"

"Crude much!"

"The fuck do you want!"

"We need you!"

"Alfred, Matthew, this better be bloody important or I'm going to be very _very _pissed."

We won! Somehow! Anywho, Arthur kind of stomps down the hallway, and to us in the living room looking really livid. (I've picked up some weird Britishy words lately).

"Is your arm falling off?"

"Well, no not really."

"Are you on fire?"

"That would be neat, but no."

"Then what exactly is so important?"

"We need fireworks-" I start, to which Mattie finishes, "For the First and Fourth of July."

He let's out an exasperated sigh, and gestures over to the phone. What does he need the phone for? Mattie hands it to him (reluctantly), and there's a lot of beeping and then a strained,

"Hello Dylan, it's Arthur."

* * *

It was really strange to hear Arthur talking on the phone to his brother. It was as though he was talking to three or four people at once, lots of yelling, and at one point he had to hold the phone away from his ear, and you could hear "fucking idiot!" "Leathcheann! Teacht abhaile!" "Where are you!" "Dad's pissed!" There was three different languages in there occasionally. I wonder... Does Arthur know them all? Maybe. The short and short of it is that Arthur is taking me to his house to get fireworks, while Francis comes and sees Mattie. Mattie and Francis talking on the phone was absolutely horrendous. All this mushy-gushy French talk, which eventually Arthur and I started to make fun of him for, all dramatic silent movie love like. In the end, Matt said good bye because we were giving him the giggles (boys can giggle too!) when we began to do the tango. I think it really got him when we tried to do the dip thing, Arthur lost his balance and we fell over. It was really fucking hysterical.

It was almost scary how fast Francis showed up, I mean, five hours later _Bam! _"Ah, _Matthieu ma chère! _It has been too long!"

Then, they sort of, started... Making out. Which wasn't really gross more... awkward. After some really quick good-byes we left, and it turns out that Arthur has a car. Which I wasn't expecting. I mean, really. Anyways, we've been driving for several hours now, and I've been sick twice. I get carsick really easily, so long road trips are either spent sleeping, or taking lots of anti-motion sickness medicine. We're finally going down this really nice gravel driveway (while I am carsick, again, I haven't thrown up... yet) with all these fancy trimmed bushes that look like they're supposed to be modeled after something but really just resemble big blobs of green goop. And... DUN DUN DUN the house is fucking _massive _just holy hell, you could fit my entire house and yard within it, and even then there would still be room left over just, wow. It's all stone and brick and reeks of high-class-fanciness. And it keeps getting bigger. Wait, no, we're just getting closer to it.

A guy who looks sort of similar to Arthur, dressed nicely in tan slacks, faint-blue button-up, and dark blue sweater vest, literally the blue version of what Arthur's wearing, is pacing back and forth along the front steps. Really, they would exactly the same if he had blonde hair instead of the pinkey-reddy-blonde he's got going on. Next to him is a little version of Arthur, waving and wearing a sailor suit. The kid's like... seven. I may be mistaken though, the middle schoolers seem to be shorter every year and I can assure you that I am _not _getting taller. When we finally stop, I kind of open the door and fall out of the car, to run over to the nearest green blob of goop and throw up my stomach. Well, that's what it feels like any way. My retching lasts for about five minutes or so, because it goes through stages you see, first the awkward dry heaving, then onto everything-inside-of-me-is-relocating-into-your-bu sh, then to the final stage of more dry heaving and all of the stomach acid leaving. Fucking nasty. After some water and three minutes of Ohgoddidthatjusthappeninfrontofyourfamilyohgodohfu ckohfuckworstfirstimpression, I feel really super actually. I feel like I could write a novel, build a deck, and write a sonata. All at the same time.

"Arthur! Arthur! Where have you been? I though school ended! It's so nice to see you!" Small squeaky voice says, damn little kid voices all high-pitched and noisy.

"Hello, Peter, it's good to see you." Arthur's voice will never be annoying ever, it's like an angel's voice or something romantic like that. "And you as well, Dylan."

So the guy on the front porch is Dylan, okay and the small one is Peter. Note to self: Memorize everyone's names and be as polite as possible. Don't be yourself. At all costs, do not be yourself.

"Where in _hell _have you been? And, who's the _other _one over there? The one who threw up all over the new bushes Dad bought during May." Dylan's voice is very... Warble-y. Sort of like, a whatsit... Stream or something. Really, it sounds like he grew up speaking a different language, one that has more lilting syllables and stuff. Overall, he doesn't seem very pleased with my presence.

"I told you earlier, I've been staying at the school. I have duties and things."

"Are duties one hundred-seventy seven centimeters tall with blonde hair and glasses?"

"Not particularly."

"Arthur, do you realize that Dad is going to be so incredibly livid with you? And all the implications that come with that?"

Arthur just shrugs, and it's fairly stunning how thickly the unrest is painted here. I will say though, the Dylan-guy looks pretty concerned actually. I wonder where the two other brothers are? What were their names again... I think it was Deglan and Allistor? Wait, yeah, it goes Deglan, Allistor, Dylan, Arthur, Peter. I don't think Mom would be able to handle so many children, she can hardly handle Mattie and I already. I think it has to do with stress or something. Although, I don't see how she could be _that _stressed, she never found out about the whole "being perfect" business. To her, we were just the "most perfect sons a woman could ever ask for" not "holy hell my sons are so incredibly fucked up". There's pulling on the leg of my jeans and I look down at the littlest one, Peter.

"Who are you, how old are you, where are you from, how do you know Arthur, where do you live, what's your favorite food, what's your favorite color, what's your favorite cheese."

"Uhm, Alfred Jones, seventeen-years old. America, school, US of A. Hamburgers, red, white and blue, and my favorite cheese is American of course!"

"I'm Peter! I like you Alfred Jones, even though you threw up in our bush."

I really hope this bush business isn't going to haunt me during our entire stay here I mean, I didn't _ask _to be carsick easily it just sort of happened and the food was weird, the roads were bumpy and it was just a really bad road trip for me. There's a lot staring until the door bangs open so hard I swear it's going to fly off of it's hinges and hit me in the face, I trip after nearly jumping out of my skin, and fall on my face. My good impression idea has gone out the window and into the street. Dammit.

"Arthur Arthur Arthur! My fourth son has finally returned." Oh shit oh shit oh shit. Arthur's dad. Mr. Kirkland himself. Okay, okay okay okay, don't freak out. Pick yourself up off the ground and-a large hand locates itself on my back, and I slip and fall on my face _again. _I look up into the face of a fairly short, really old looking, chubby man wearing my "Can you not" face, as I try to stand back up and stay up.

"So, is this the American Dylan had been telling me about?"

"Uhm, yes, that would be me. Uhm, it's nice to meet you?" I'm stumbling all over my words, which isn't like me at all. _Be cool, Alfred. Be cooler than cool. Cool like a cucumber. Wait, can they even be cool? Not temperature-wise but-_Shut up shut up shut up brain! Find your directional compass and fix it! Focus, stay in tune with the situation at hand!

"Come now boys, let's go inside and visit." Cue ominous freaky over-protective dad voice, and a hand pushing me into the giant house of doom.

Because really, that's what this house reeks of, doom.

A big evil house of doom surrounded by big blobs of green goop.

* * *

These chapters keep getting longer and longer~

Oh, and uhm, a clarification on the Masha, Vanya, and Nata thing. Apparently, it's a big thing in Russia to give people nicknames, so Masha is the nickname form of Maria (I don't even know other languages are weird), Vanya is for Ivan, and Nata is for Natalya. Oh! Pirozhki looks absolutely fabulous, and I will make it and let you know how it tastes~ Anywho! I will see you in a few days as always. Goodbye friends~


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Hello! I have come to bother you all again! I was at my aunt's for a while and didn't get to write as much as I wanted but anyways, Seven of Clubs yes I am from tumblr. Actually, tumblr brought me here to be honest. Now, I hope you had a good Fourth of July and all that. This chapter's a bit shorter than the last, but ends sort of sadly. *spoiler alert* (laughs) This took so long to write oh my god. I lost at least a thousand words of work thirty minutes ago, and couldn't really remember everything that was there. Anyways! Happy reading and such!

* * *

I was right when I said this was an evil house of doom, the inside is just as nice as the outside but the feeling is off. While everything is all big and fancy, the aura is not the same, my house you walk in and it's all nice and cozy sort of... Loving. Even though a lot of the time that's not the case. Then Arthur's house, feels so... _empty. _There are so many people living here but it feels forsaken, as though something's not quite right with the people in this household. Moreover, no one seems to like each other. We've been in the living room for quite some time now and it's just been filled with cold stares, silence, occasionally some chitchat, and a large amount of glaring. All the brothers are here now-no sign of a Mom anywhere-and they don't seem to enjoy my presence. Everyone in the room is dressed all pristine and nice, then... Then there's me. Old leather bomber jacket with a big 50 printed on the back, white t-shirt, and an older pair of dark jeans. I feel really "common" as Arthur would put it. Overall, not welcome. Every now and again you can hear someone mutter "poof" "poofter" and "twink". I'm not entirely too sure what it means but I do know that it's directed at either Arthur, me, or really the both of us and that it is not good. The air of hostility in here has gotten thick to the point where I'm ready to just get up and escape, yet I just can't seem to bring myself to leave Arthur alone with these people.

I wonder...

I think, oh my god if they know that means oh fuck oh fuck what if they _know _that you know, we swing the other way and this is bad this is really really bad. How do I leave? I have to leave, I'm getting hysterical, I am getting hysterical and the longer I sit here I know for a fact that I _will _freak out and have a panic attack. The last time that happened was in public before we came here to England, at school and it was the most embarrassing thing, they had to wait for Mattie to come and get me because I was wrapped up in a ball on the floor in the middle of the cafeteria and refused to move.

You see, when I have a panic attack several things can happen, and typically all at once, first I start trembling-slight and barely noticeable at first but gradually getting worse, then it goes on to sweating-typically my hands, from there we get to my heart speeding up, and after that I get chills and this fear of impending doom or that I'm going insane, in the end I'm curled up in a ball shaking and crying. I just can't escape I need to escape, and I'm trembling oh help me God I'm trembling and it's getting worse I _need _to leave but, how? Can I, I could say I need to use the bathroom, or that I would like a glass of water, but wait no they might have people who do that for them just _fuck__! _Everyone is staring at me, six pairs of eyes, and I just someone help me please, I need to leave so I can calm down or call someone, my hysteria is increasing rapidly, and I can't breathe I can't breathe. Five pairs of green eyes, and one pair of blue eyes, and then there's my eyes looking from face to face wanting to escape or faint or die or something! I'm sweating, my hands are sweating, maybe this was a bad idea. I mean, I only came because I didn't want Arthur to be lonely and had a bad feeling about him going alone but now I want to be in the States curled up in my bed, cowering under my blankets away from responsibility and just away from the world.

They won't stop staring at me! I have to I have to I have to get out of here! Just, fuck! This is my fault, I should have figured I would get nervous and brought some of that stuff that will keep me from freaking out, the anti-anxiety stuff that Dr. Kolros gave me the last time I had one of these. Just, oh my God stop staring at me! I'm freaking out I'm freaking the fuck out! Someone please help me!

"Alfred, are you all right?" Arthur oh thank goodness, you broke the silence, and SOMEONE IS TOUCHING ME. _Someone is touching me! _I nearly fall out of the chair I've jumped so incredibly badly, I mean for a moment I wasn't even sitting on the chair anymore. Just, I can't deal with people touching me when I'm freaking out on the inside. "Alfred?"

"Yes!" I'm squeaking in a very I'm-really-hysterical-right-now tone and this reeks of disaster. "No-yes! Yes, perfectly all right, I'm fine, I'm perfectly fine!"

I'm twitching at this point, not the barely noticeable kind but the tweaker kind, where your entire body sort of spasms for a moment. Alfred F. Jones, hero of the World is twitching like a fucking tweaker in front of his boyfriend's family while in the onset of a panic attack.

"I don't believe you."

"Well, you should, because I'm fine, just fine." Lies lies lies, why am I lying? Maybe they'll let me off scott-free if I kindly let them know that I need to excuse myself for a moment or the next one hundred years. Very abruptly two incredibly large green eyes are two centimeters away from of my face. I nearly scream, start to cry, and fall out of my chair all at the same time. I know it's Arthur and I love him and all of that, but it's extraordinarily disconcerting for me with him being so close to me in front of so many people. I'm not sure whether I should hug him, kiss him, or just flat-out cry from exhaustion from having had thrown up so many times over the course of several hours and because I'm still really quite hysterical. "I, uhm, p-please d-don't, why are you, people, uhm, I w-would very m-much, too close, too close too close!"

I have my hands sort of awkwardly clutching onto my pant legs, my glasses are sliding off of my nose and threatening to come off completely, my face is turning a nice shade of purple because I still _can't_ _breathe _then to top it all off I feel like I'm going to be sick. This just isn't a good time for me okay? "I feel like I'm going to throw up."

Arthur jumps back, and looks a little guilty, then glances around the room scowling at everyone in turn (the chant of "poof" "poofter" and "twink" is back) back to me, and mumbles something about talking, turns to face everyone, announces that we are staying the night-wait, _what_-and that he is taking me to the loo to get me some anti-nausea medicine. He takes my hand, looking at me all gentle and smiling slightly, to lead me out of the room and away from all of these terrifying people.

* * *

I pretty much collapse the minute the door closes, damn near fling off my glasses and rub my face with my hands, happy to finally be able to breathe again.

"Alfred," Arthur starts really hesitantly, "what exactly happened while we were sitting there? You had a look of absolute terror on your face, it was as though you weren't breathing."

"Well, you see, uhm, I wasn't breathing actually, I was very scared, almost had a heart attack, and if we had stayed any longer I would have started to freak out on the outside and have a panic attack."

"Oh." He seems sort of surprised, as though he would never have thought I was the kind of person that had this kind of thing happen to them. "Love, why didn't you say anything sooner?"

"I was too scared, I was so so scared Arthur you have no idea. Please don't take me back there, and why the hell did you say that we're staying the night here?"

"I... To prove a point." He's looking at the floor-which has the most gorgeous tiles like holy fuck-sort of sullenly. I don't know exactly what's gone on in this house to make his so upset about being here and wanting to prove a point, but I may as well help him. Or support him and stuff, because that's what lovers do. Right?

I sigh and push myself up off the floor, brushing any invisible dirt that may have found itself nesting there off the ass of my pants. With my left forefinger under his chin, I look at him square in the eyes (is that how the saying goes? I don't think so..) so close that the tips of our noses are touching, and say quietly, "Whatever point it is you're trying to make, I'll help you. Because that's what lovers do."

Arthur blushes this light pink color except the tip of his nose which is white, and smiles at me, well, at least until the door bangs open to which the two of us nearly jump out of our skin and fall over one another in a really bad-looking homoerotic way. "Ooof! Urgh, get off you're squishing me!"

"Not like you haven't had this kind of weight on top of you before."

"Look, Arthur, this really isn't the time to bring that up."

I can see a really fuzzy short, chubby figure looking down at us. I think it's glaring but I can't really tell, it looks all blob-like and makes me want to laugh-a lot. Hold up, my glasses. Where are my glasses?

"What do you two think you're doing?" It's the ominous freaky over-protective dad voice except version two-point-o limited upset and really pissed off edition. I push myself up onto my palms, and sort of reach out a bit for my glasses, seriously, where'd they go?

"Well, you see, we were just talking out here and having a pleasant conversation when the door slammed open-which was incredibly startling-and we slipped and fell over on top of each other. It looks a lot worse than it actually is. Can someone please tell me where my glasses are? My eyes are really starting to hurt right about now." Which is true, my voice sounds a little funny though, very strained and Arthur is _still _on top of-kind of abruptly about one-hundred eighty pounds is lifted off me which sort of sucks, I had gotten really quite comfortable, and my glasses are thrown at my face. Which really_ hurts. _I mean, throwing glasses at me was not necessary I already had to get them fixed after I fell out of the tree and that was only a few weeks ago. I'm fairly sure that Mom wouldn't be very pleased if I had to ask her for money to get my glasses fixed. Again.

"Let go of me! I can stand up on my own! Let go!"

With my glasses on, I can see Arthur being held up by the collar, flailing his arms around in a really awkward way. For such a short, chubby man his dad is a lot stronger than I had expected, but in perspective Arthur is really slender and scrawny for a seventeen-year old boy. I can also see the look of pure disgust on the chubby man's face, and that Arthur's pulling his shirt collar away from his neck looking a little red in the face. It's almost scary, I must have a sort of frightened look on my face because the look of disgust turns to a more contempt one, and he holds Arthur higher which makes me freak out a little inside as his face slowly becomes a bit blue instead of red. I think my hero instinct must have kicked in because I kind of spring up and rip Arthur down and away from the chubby man, holding really closely and throwing my most vicious glare I've got in my repertoire at him. Why would you do that to a person? Is this really what goes on in this house? All that had happened was we fell over and spurred on a bit of a homoerotic situation, I really just want to go home. Fireworks or no fireworks. I know what the not-quite-right feeling about this house is, it's the contempt and fear that sits around this place. I don't like it one bit, Arthur spent most of his life here; and I can see it perfectly clear now why he stayed at the school with us, it wasn't just me it was staying away from this place. _  
_

"Why in _hell _would you do that to a person! What is wrong with you? How-how could you do that with no remorse at all to someone! Especially to your son!" I've gotten really upset, yelling upset, and I can't stop, just... I'm stunned at this. "Does the well-being of the people in your household mean anything to you? "Twink" "poofter" "poof" that shouldn't matter! Arthur is your son, and you need to fucking accept him the way he is, the perfect student, perfect student council president, he just fucking perfect! And you and you-you treat him this way without a second thought! I don't fucking get it, at least my parents kept my brother and I out of the arguments and dysfunction! Yet here you are, dragging a perfectly innocent person into something he does not need in his life! What the _fuck _is wrong with you people!"

I think Arthur's crying, because there's something sort of wet around the neck of my shirt and slight shaking in my arms. A door behind us creeps open, and I can feel several pairs of eyes on my back and a quiet, "Peter go back inside and watch the telly for a bit okay?" that sounds like Dylan. The chubby man looks really surprised, as though no one's ever stood up to him before, this quickly switches back to contempt and he looks me directly in the eye then says very slowly and deliberately, "Why would I want a homosexual for a son?"

I do the only thing that I know how to do in a situation like this, let Arthur go, make sure he can stand, and punch that homophobic motherfucker in the face.

* * *

"What does that have to do with anything! A son is a son no matter who he likes or what his sexuality is! It shouldn't fucking matter! None of that should matter to you! Arthur is your son and that's all that there should be to it! I am sick and tired of this bullshit! Who cares? So what if your son likes boys? That is none of your personal business! Fuck! This is a free country, no? Then fucking act like it!" In a bit of hindsight it probably wasn't the best idea to punch the chubby man but, I didn't really think much about that. Any ways, at this point I'm screaming and my voice is getting a little on the hoarse side but, it's worth it. "Just... fuck! You tease him, tease him and tease him until I wind up finding him drunk off his ass in his room at school muttering all these self-deprecating things! And it's from _you! _I can feel the hate radiating off of you people! It's not healthy! I understand not liking the people that you live with, but that is no reason to hold your son up by the collar until his face turns blue and I have to rip him from your grasp! Short, hateful, vindictive homophobic_ motherfucker!" _I'm actually kind of... hungry. I'm also clenching my fists, seething and very red-faced from my screaming session, the chubby man looks... afraid of me. But, why? I can understand that he might be sort of dazed after having someone screaming while only several inches away from your face.

I spin around and pick Arthur up-gently of course, because he's got this dazed look in his eyes-carrying him like a princess (yes because princesses can be badass, have you seen _Mulan_?) to the closest flight of stairs that I can see. This is going to be one hell of a night.

* * *

"Why did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Yell at my father, and hit him."

I sigh and mumble into my knees, "He was hurting you." We've been up in Arthur's room for most of the day not really saying anything, with Arthur laying on the bed and me folded up in a ball with my back against the side, near where Arthur's waist is. Every so often he kind of absent-mindedly strokes my hair softly, pulling out knots occasionally and humming the "Pirate's Life for Me" song quietly. I do that a lot, react without thinking, which may or may not be part of the biggest cause of the cutting business. Speaking of that, Gilbert. What am I going to say the next time I see him? What am I going to _do _the next time I see him? Hug him? Cry? Ask tons of questions? Or... what if I just tell him about me. "Hey, Artie..."

"It's _Arthur _and yes, what is it?"

"Do you know Gilbert Beilschmidt?"

There's a bit of a pause, followed by a deep breath. "Isn't he Ludwig's older brother?"

"Yeah... Uhm, well... Mattie and I were out a few weeks back, when we got lost in the city, and we ran into those two and uhm," I bite my lip and do my hardest to choose my words very carefully. "Mattie and I noticed that he had scars and red marks on his wrist."

"'Red marks'?"

"I-uhm-cuts. Cuts on his wrist, lots of them actually. But, I was wondering if you could help me figure out what to say the next time I see him."

It was always one thing to see my wrist and its cuts. Another entirely to see the same thing on someone else. You get caught up in a mix of guilt, fear, and a bit of hope. Guilt because you would never wish someone else to do that same thing as you; fear for them taking their life; and hope that you can find someone who understands. Someone who you can pour everything out to, just all of your secrets. Secrets like the fact that I can tell you where every razor, shard of glass and general sharp object is in house and yard, because I put it there. Being perfectly honest, I have a little tin I put all of my spare change into, and at the bottom is a folded up square of toilet paper, beneath that are two razor blades. It's just generally comforting to have them nearby actually, sick and fucked up but, comforting.

"Of course I'll help you Alfred, we'll work together on this. Not now though."

"Why not now?"

"Not now because you are coming up here and cuddling with me."

"Oh." I do as he says, shedding my bomber jacket though (I thought it was always raining during English summers, but it's eighty degrees out) because mt back is kind of really sweaty and really gross. The back of my shirt is damp, not just eh, whatever damp but _oh God ew ew ew ew ewwww it's sticking to me my shirt is sticking to me fucking gross _damp. It used to happen a lot back home in the States, we live a way out from Boston and it got fucking _hot, _not dry Arizona/Eastern Washington heat but a damp, humid inescapable heat. Mattie and I would go across ferries as walk-ons all the time, because as soon as the boat got moving across the water it felt just great to be alive and to live so close to the ocean. Naturally, we had to ride our bikes, and take the bus all over the place before we could get to the ferry terminals but in the end, it was always worth it. The water was this deep blue-green color, with a white sparkles on all the waves, big and small. I will always live on the water, no matter where I am I want to be close to the water.

Fuck it's hot under all these damn blankets. Who needs a fleece blanket, a quilt _and _a comforter in the middle of summer? It's sort of compulsive, pulling off all my clothes until I'm down to my underpants. If you're hot it's almost like some sort of unwritten code that your reaction is to pull off clothes until you're comfortable. It's really nice to be here cuddled up with Arthur and...

"Why the fuck aren't you wearing pants, moreover, why aren't you wearing any underwear?"

"I got hot."

"Look, typically when you get hot you start with your shirt first. Then, if you're still hot move down to your pants. Ooo-er. Jesus fuck Arthur, what if someone comes in here and _sees?" _

Arthur laughs, and dismisses the whole thing with a wave of his hand. But, no, seriously, I already sort of fucked things up and we have to stay here for the night and God knows how long after that.

"Look, if you'd like I'll take my shirt off too."

"No! I-er-shit." Well, as good-looking as Arthur is, I would really prefer that things don't go even more wrong than they already are. "I would uhm, really like it if things didn't get more complicated than they already are." There's a loud snort next to me followed by a laugh and a sigh. Arthur damn near slaps me when he rolls over to throw one arm around my luck, I mean, I almost ducked and you would too if a hand came at your face with high speeds. Sometimes (most of the time) people confuse the hell outta me, like why exactly do you feel the need to slap me on the back? All it does it make me trip and fall on my face, you can barely touch me and I fall over. Back to the situation at hand, Arthur's looking me dead in the eye (which is giving me goose bumps fucking green eyes) and smiling slightly.

"Things have been complicated for quite some time, love. I do believe, that you gained the respect of my brothers though."

"Really?" Wow, that's sort of... Great. That makes things a lot easier in the long run for us both, I guess. Cue silently staring for several minutes.

_Bang! Bang! Bang! Thud!_

"Jesus Christ on a cross!" I have fallen over for probably the sixth time today. Check out version 5.02 Limited fall out of bed edition, on sale at the closest Game Stop near you!

"_Arrrrthuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrr _I'm _bored _come play with me!"

"For fuck's sake. We're sort of busy!" Hello, agitation you're very welcome.

"Deglan said to stop playing your twink games and come down to tea."

"Oi! I didn't say you could tell him that!" There's some sniggering and a "But I did, mate." the argument begins,

"Goddammit Allistor! Peter's fucking twelve! Don't tell him to say such things!"

"It was just a joke, brother."

"Still!"

"Calm the fuck down Deglan, it was just a joke."

"Stay out of this Dylan!"

"Someone play with me!"

"Go outside and play with your dolls Peter!"

"But I want to _play_!"

I have never seen anyone move as quickly as Arthur has. In five seconds he is fully dressed and slamming the door open screaming: "God so help me will you all just bugger off!" I prop my face up with my hand and stare at the strange scene in the hallway. From what I can see, Peter is sitting on the floor blubbering and whining quietly holding a tiny toy replica of a concrete military fort; Dylan is standing and observing the whole mess, while Deglan and Allistor are on the floor doing a wrestle of sorts, Arthur's standing in the doorway and I can clearly picture the scowl on his face. Then, there's me just hanging out of Arthur's bed watching everything with an amused face. No seriously, I am literally hanging out of Arthur's bed. It takes a moment for everyone to realise that I am here watching their every move. The surprised look that has graced their faces is glorious. Of course I just smile and say, "Hey."

Everything bursts into pandemonium, question upon question upon question. Apparently, they are extremely interested about whether or not Arthur is hella kinky in bed. That comes up and I burst into laughter, to the point where I'm almost crying. All these hilarious questions, "Is Arthur good in bed?" "How exactly do you guys do it?" "_Do _you guys do it?" while Arthur is absolutely mortified at all the prying, I think it's fucking hysterical. Maybe, things aren't as bad as I thought they were. Dylan helps me up, and they're all extraordinarily surprised at the fact that I own Stars and Stripes underpants. The Kirklands, can be really quite nice to each other sometimes. Or, this may just be an anomaly, like a once in a lifetime thing.

"Dad was wrong y'know! You're not going to ruin us at all!" "I can't believe you hit the old man! Good job mate!" "You're not too bad for a poofter!" "Take good care of our little brother when you go back!"

They like me. Holy shit they like me! This is great! Just absolutely fantastic!

"Y'know I never would have thought that you guys would like me."

They all laugh, while Peter looks incredibly confused, saying something about liking anyone who had the guts to punch "the old man" and to yell at him the way I did. From what I can make out no one has ever stood up to the chubby man in his entire existence. Some where along all the praising and general niceties I'm fully clothed again, and being pushed down the stairs for tea.

Is now a good time to tell them I don't drink tea?

* * *

The night passed okay, there was a silent dinner, Dylan putting Peter to sleep, and several hours later Arthur and I going to sleep ourselves. The morning was fantastic, surprise breakfast-in-bed from Arthur, hasty good-byes before finally leaving. The ride home was even worse than the first trip to his house. I threw up five times, refused to eat, and slept through most of the car ride. It was about ten or so in the morning when we finally got home and had given the fireworks a home.

We're in the kitchen, quietly sipping at cups of coffee and tea, Arthur reading the newspaper, me doodling absentminded designs of a skyscraper when suddenly there's a loud frantic banging on the front door. The two of us stop everything we're doing to listen, and see if they're going to leave, when there's a loud, "Help! Please! Alterer bruder! He... He... Please help me!"

"Oh my god that's Ludwig. Holy fuck! We're coming we're coming!" I throw open the door to see Ludwig holding Gilbert very protectively looking incredibly scared. "Holy shit, just, shit. What happened?"

He looks as though he's about to cry. "I-I went to th-the store, and and when I came b-back I f-found alterer bruder laying on the floor with with a n-note in his hand, there was blood all over the kitchen floor, I-I bandaged his his arm, b-but I'm not sure, I... Please help me."

"Oh no. Please, not that. Come in come in come in!" Over the course of several minutes, we have Gilbert resting on the couch, still alive thank God, and me re-reading the note over and over.

_Luddy, If you are reading this that means I have done the despicable and am probably either dying or nearly dead. I'm sorry my kleinen Bruder, I wish I could have done more to help you. I was never the best alterer Bruder in the first place, and know that you are very upset and very hurt right now. I was so lonely Bruder, so incredibly lonely. To protect you I lost my closest friends, while I do not resent you for that, I do regret never being able to tell you how lonely I was outside of these words. Tell Feliciano that I said to take very good care of you, and not to let you follow my footsteps. I'm sorry, so incredibly sorry. Liebe, dein alterer Bruder Gilbert _

I must have stood in front of our couch screaming at his unconscious body for ages. I screamed all sorts of things, I asked him why a lot, and called him stupid. Mattie and Francis came out at one point during my screaming session, because the ambulance was called, and I broke down in tears when they took Gilbert away.

I should have known, I should have known that this might happen.

I have this lump of guilt in my throat, sitting there while I cry. I could have stopped this from happening. I could have... Shit.

_I really should have known better than to dismiss something this big._

* * *

A/N: Hello! The next chapter is going to be _filled _with feels and modeled slightly after a strange Hetastuck dream I had the other day when I was taking a nap. I will do my best to see you in a few days and appease your story needs or whatever. But yeah, all these comments you guys keep leaving are really quite great! And, motivating. So, thanks you guys, and see you soon~


	9. Gilbert and the Dream world

Chapter 9: Gilbert and the Dreamworld

Hello again! I have put forth muchos grande effort into this one. Also, I'm thinking of naming future chapters, as a teaser of sorts to the contents. Thank you thank you for your wonderful comments and liking and following this project here. To be honest I have no idea what point in time they're at like, seriously the Doctor may need to come in the Tardis and save them *laughs at her lame joke* Oh, feel free to comment and correct my German, I have never taken a German class in my life and used Google Translate for all my different language needs. Yeah, have fun reading!

* * *

"I should have known. I should have known. I should have _known._"

"Alfred, stop beating yourself up about this."

"But, I... I noticed and didn't say anything. This is my fault, I knew... I knew how these things happen, I knew that this could happen. But I did nothing. I'm so fucking stupid!"

I don't think I stopped crying for longer than the ten minutes Arthur, Mattie and Francis forced me to eat something. I didn't tell them this, but several minutes later I threw it all back up in one of the bathrooms. They gave Gilbert a blood transfusion, saying something about him losing tons of blood and that it was vital that they get lots of fluids back into his system, especially because none of us know exactly how long he spent passed out on the kitchen floor. Ludwig said that he was at the store for an hour, and I explained that it takes a lot of guts to actually get down to cutting. See, before it actually happens, you sit in a dazed mental state, talking yourself into it while all the muck and disgusting grows until you can't take it anymore and give into the temptation.

Ludwig was in Gilbert's room, and Arthur, Mattie, Francis and I sat outside for somewhere near eight hours before Gilbert woke up. At one point we all slept for a little while, not all at once though. About three hours into our wait, Feliciano and Lovino Vargas showed up with Antonio funnylastname in tow. Feliciano looked worried, Lovino annoyed, and Antonio had a blanched and a terrified look on his face. So, the Bad Touch Trio is finally back together again. It doesn't surprise me that Antonio came, he's here for the same reason Francis is. They are worried about one of the closest friends they have ever had.

There was a bit of a yelp and what seemed to be the German version of "thank you God" when Gilbert woke up. Arthur jumped into awake-ness, and my first instinct was to run in there but Francis said that we should give them an hour or two for some brotherly bonding. Okay so, he didn't say that exactly but whatever. The waiting after Gilbert woke up was excruciating. I'm dying to talk to Gilbert about what happened, and generally talk about y'know... Yeah.

"He wants to see you."

"Pardon?" I look up into Ludwig's face, which is all solemn and his eyes are red around the edges as though he's been crying just as much as I have.

"Gilbert wants to see you, Alfred." His voice is really quiet and hoarse, and I have the nerve to say,

"Why?" In an incredulous voice, I mean what exactly would Gilbert want with me? I am not exactly the best company in the world.

"I don't know, he just keeps asking to see you. Something about hearing things."

"Oh." Could he mean when I was yelling at him? Then... Maybe he wasn't as unconscious as we had thought. I squeeze Arthur's hand, and follow Ludwig into the room where Gilbert is. Now, Gilbert had always been fairly pale and ghostly, even more so than Arthur, but now he looked almost as white as the walls. His eyes weren't the same bright mix of colors that they had been, more a pale blue than its usual red-purple-blue heterochromia iridum-ness. His hair is all disheveled and mussed as opposed to its earlier anime-like perfectness. He looks so fucking guilty. "So, uhm, you wanted to talk to me?"

Gilbert just nods, and I can hear Felciano murmuring something to Ludwig that sounds like a mix of comforting German and Italian; then Francis and Antonio talking, other than that it's just my breathing and Gilbert's dejected stare at the blood stained note that's sitting in his hands.

"I... I wrote this some time ago. I never imagined that I would actually go through with it.. Kese.. But here I am now. I was so damn lonely.. All the time.."

I sit quietly and listen, staring at the red blotches that adorn the letter.

_Liebe, dein alterer Bruder Gilbert _

"I've seen yours you know."

"My what?"

"Scars. I've seen them, I just didn't know what to say to you... You had this air around you.. You seemed happy but very sad, as though something was bothering you. It reflected in everything you did. We had math together, I sat in the back ignoring most of what the teacher had said, but you... You put everything you had to give into what ever it was you were doing. Homework, tests, trying to get Arthur Kirkland to notice you. It didn't matter what it was. I'm not sure what it is that makes you so sad, but..." Gilbert pauses, as though he's searching for the right words. "I-I want to know. What it is that makes you sad."

I don't know what to say, looking up I can see him crying. "I... Uhm, Antonio and Francis are outside."

"_What?_ No, they wouldn't..." He sounds stunned, as though he had figured that they wouldn't have come, that they would've condemned him for what he did.

"They would. And, if you'd like I'll tell you now."

"Why you're sad?"

"Yes, but, on one condition, that you tell me why you're so lonely."

Gilbert looks from me to the note and back to me again. "O-okay, you go first."

* * *

I tell him everything. Starting from my earliest memories when the dysfunction began, to when Mattie had to go to the hospital, and all up to the last time I cut myself. I go into Mattie's side of the story as well, talking about how while he never cut himself, he _did _starve himself and if you look closely you can still see multiple ribs jutting out and a slight curve from his rib cage to his abdomen, and how if you were to see him several years ago his entire upper body looked hollowed out. The first time I saw him like that, I swear my heart swelled and broke into little pieces, at the time I didn't think it was too bad. Really, I had figured that it was just me. That I was the only one. I was so incredibly wrong. I ramble at some parts, going on about Mattie and how I couldn't have asked for a better brother. Gilbert smiles every time I mention Mattie by name, and nods occasionally. Giving the air that he's hanging on to my every word.

When I finish we sit quietly for a while, before Gilbert starts.

"We got in a car accident. Mutter, Vater, kleinen Bruder and I. I do not know how, but Luddy and I got out okay. Mutter and Vater... Not so much. They spent a lot of time in the hospital, and at first they seemed to get better. Broken bones healing, internal bleeding stopped. So they let Mutter and Vater come home. For a while, things were all right. Mutter was cooking again, making us pichelsteiner dinners, and pfannkuchen for desert. Nothing could have possibly bothered us, Luddy was too little to notice when Mutter got sick. I noticed, and started doing everything she did, I couldn't make all the things she did, but I tried, only managing to make curry wurst with quarkkuchen for desert. The most I could make for lunches were sandwiches mostly made of wurst, a slice of bread folded like your "hot dog buns", a piece of lettuce, and some spicy ketchup. Luddy and Vater never complained about the cooking.

"I knew that my cooking wasn't as good as Mutter's was, and as she grew more sick the more I did for her. Shopping, cleaning, cooking, baking, gardening. I did it all. Kese every night I talked to her after Luddy went to bed, I told her about cooking, and what happened at school, how I was getting better at cleaning and making curry wurst. She would smile the whole time, and when I finished she called me her _kleine Soldat, _her little soldier. After seven months, three days, and twelve hours of being sick she passed away. It was a school day, and I had come home happy to show her all the good marks I had gotten on assessments we had taken, but all that was left was a letter on my bed. I opened it out of curiosity and all I found was,

_My kleine Soldat, I am very sorry. If you find this on your pillow that means that I have passed away. I have nothing but pride for you kleine Soldat. You did everything I could not without being asked, and did it well. I could never have asked for a better son than my little Gilbert. I am so very sorry that you had to grow up so quickly, but always remember how proud I am of you for taking care of everyone all by yourself. Make sure that every one eats right, and no one follows me to the after life. Protect your bruder, and make sure your Vater does not do anything bad and try following me. I know that you will all be very sad, but I believe in you. You will grow up to be very strong, and always remember that Mutter will always look after her kleine Soldat. Ich liebe dich sehr. I believe in you my little Gilbert. Liebe, Mutter_

"I must have cried for hours before Luddy came in and found me holding the letter while leaning over her bed on my knees. Vater stayed off of work for days, making arrangements for her to be buried, calling family members. I hardly spoke to anyone, I did my daily duties, cleaning and cooking, before going into my room to lay on my bed and stare into nothingness. Eating, sleeping, speaking all seemed very trivial then. Vater took me to see the doctor at one point and he said I had lost a quarter of my body weight since my last check-up. On and on he went, telling me to get proper rest, eat right, and the last thing he said was that I needed to start speaking again. I refused to go to school, because every time I did they would send me to see the school psychiatrist, who just asked questions I decided I did not want to answer. The whole family was on edge around us, as though we might explode at any moment. We never did, no one followed in Mutter's footsteps. I grew very sad, and when I started going to our fancy school here in England, I met Antonio and Francis. Stupid bastards wouldn't leave me alone until I began talking again. During my tenth-year, and Ludwig's ninth-year we received a call from home. Saying something about Vater and a note left for the two of us.

"That summer we came home and they told us Vater had passed away in the hospital after being hit by a drunk driver on his way to work. We read over the note, which told us and our family that all the money he and Mutter had was to be given to us, and all money from selling the house and things inside was to go to us also. It's understandable that the rest of the family was upset with how things worked out. In the end, after selling all of our things beside what we could not live without, and the house we had some four hundred thousand Euros or so. We packed up, and came to live in England, the scholarship we had didn't cover much else than books, and tuition so, we stayed in our little apartment. Truthfully, it is more of a loft than an apartment but, we've managed by ourselves for some time now. A month or two after Antonio and Francis got me to start talking the so-called "Bad Touch Trio" had formed. Luddy met the Feliciano kid sometime after Antonio became attached to his brother Lovino or his "lovely Lovi" and there was the five of us. We were like a little family. While I was sad, I honestly could not have been happier. When the "Bad Touch Trio" was forced to split... That was when the hurting began. Kese... I was alright at first. Then slowly found myself sitting in our kitchen all alone, with a razor blade in hand. After that, it was every day. Luddy didn't seem to notice, and if he did he must have gauged how deep they were and considered my need for help and decided that I would be okay. Kesese, sitting here now, it may be a little obvious that I'm not okay."

I nod and laugh a little, murmuring, "Yeah, it might be a little obvious." I look up, and his eyes seem a little brighter than before, as though talking about it helped him. "I don't pity you, y'know."

"What?"

I clear my throat and start again, "I don't pity you for all that's happened. I mean, you're alive and Ludwig is alive, and it takes a lot of guts to do everything you've done for your family. I understand, not so much on losing family members, but about being sad. You should... You should try being friends with Francis and Antonio again."

"But they hurt so many people because of us.."

"Then make it different. Find a way to show that you're just friends, no more of this 'Bad Touch Trio' stuff. Make it work, be a family again." I look down at my feet, worn-out Converse with mismatched neon colored socks beneath, and say in a voice barely above a whisper, "We can all be a family... A great big happy family.."

Gilbert smiles lightly, and murmurs, "Yes, I would like that very much."

* * *

We have a full house. In the beginning it was just Ludwig and Gilbert who were going to stay in my room after Gilbert got out of the hospital. Then Feliciano demanded to stay, followed by Lovino who said that he "wasn't going to live with the Grandpa bastard alone" and naturally Antonio insisted upon staying as well. Francis was already here in the first place, which I don't really mind, he and Mattie can sleep in the same bed provided they keep it quiet. Right now, Arthur and I are sleeping together in his room, Mattie and Francis in Mattie's room, Ludwig and Feliciano in my room, with Gilbert on a cot near the closet, and Antonio and Lovino are crashed out on the pull out bed couch.

I'm not saying that I've had a bad time though, things have been hectic and exciting with so many people here. Gilbert is sort of the odd one out among all the couples but Ludwig and Feliciano try including him in everything they do. He hangs around Mattie a lot who seems to now be included in a love triangle. As far as I know, Arthur, Antonio, Lovino and I are the only ones in an actual relationship, although I get the feeling that at some point or another Ludwig and Feliciano are going to get together. Francis keeps implying that he wants to become boyfriend and... boyfriend with Mattie but Mattie is kind of oblivious and will need a direct question to get it. As far as I can tell everyone has been having a cracktastic time, to the point where Francis suggested we request a larger apartment so the nine of us can live together properly.

Which is fine by me, everyone has a designated night to cook, and there have been a lot of interesting and delicious foods roaming about. Feliciano (who insists on being called 'Feli') makes pasta often, but always in different ways, and most of the time he makes the pasta himself. Francis does crepes for breakfast, Arthur fish and chips, Mattie pancakes, Antonio this strange dish called "summer vegetables" it's vegetarian but still good, Lovino more pasta but it has a bit of a Spanish kick to it, Ludwig and Gilbert make curry wurst, and I do hamburgers. It has been really neat trying all these new recipes, and having so many people from different countries come together.

We did it. We really did it. The nine of us made a big, crazy, mixed up family.

I love it.

* * *

"Arthur... Arthur wake up.."

"What the bloody hell do you want it's four in the bloody morning."

"I want tea.."

"Make your own fucking tea."

"I want to have tea with you..."

"Alfred if you think that I am willing to wake up at four in the morning and have tea, you are sorely mistaken."

"Come on please?"

"No. Go back to sleep."

"But-"

"Sleep."

"Mph, all right."

I sling one arm around him gently and pull him closer, trying to go back to sleep, which succeeds. Well sort of.

* * *

"Mister who are you?"

"Pardon?"

I look around to find myself in a large grassy field, and in front of me is a small child that looks just like me but obviously smaller, and wearing white baptism robes. The little boy is holding a light brown colored rabbit, and fiddling with a piece of ribbon that is the same color as Arthur's eyes. "I'm Alfred, but, who are you exactly?"

"I'm America."

"Don't lie to me, seriously who are you?"

"I told you Mister Alfred, I'm America. And you must be big me."

"I-no that isn't right." What in the name of fuck is going on? This doesn't feel like a dream at all, but I can't possibly... The child looks up at me and smiles this big smile that reaches his eyes, that are deep as the sea and blue like the sky. It's dazzling.

"No, it's right. You look just like me, which means that you're me! England named me Alfred too, he said that I should have a people name with my nation name."

"Oh, I see. Okay, so, America, where are we?"

"In the Great Plains of course. Pretty, isn't it?"

Over what feels like the next two hours, America has taken me all over the place, meeting up with his brother Canada. Which was interesting. I swear it's as though Hetalia has come to life and now I have become a part of it. It's strange, seeing this version of the States, before there were buildings, and factories and general suburbia. This déjà vu feeling is gnawing at my stomach, as though I've been to all these places before. The feeling grows stronger as America takes me to see England. I almost fall over when I see this England guy. He looks exactly like Arthur except older, and I somehow manage to find myself kissing him. Everything feels the same, the reaction, and general goodness at kissing. The exact same as Arthur. God has to be playing tricks on me. He has to, I don't understand...

"This isn't right."

"What's not right America?"

"What?" I look up, but everything is different, England is still there but wearing a green military uniform, complete with tall boots and a Sam Browne belt. Looking back down at me, I'm wearing a tan uniform, with my bomber jacket over top. We seem to be in what looks like Normandy. We're on the fucking beach where D-Day happened. Jesus fucking Christ.

Time blurs by, people milling about, talking, officers giving out orders, England talking to me, all I want is to wake up.

This can't be. No, I'm not... I don't understand. This can't be happening to me.

I'm not America. I'm Alfred F. Jones, I should be in bed sleeping next to Arthur Kirkland. I should be in a three-bedroom apartment in London. I should be anywhere but here.

* * *

England is kissing me again. But, it feels different this time, more... Sexual I guess. Well, he is sort of on top of me, which complicates things. A lot.

But, holy fuck is he good at kissing.

If I remember right, they've always said something about England being the land of good kissers or something similar. Anyways, from what I can tell, we're in private now, and I seem to be missing various articles of clothing. Like my shoes, bomber jacket, belt, the shirt part of my uniform, and my tie. Just like in all the times Arthur and I have gone at it, things move incredibly quickly as though it would be a waste of time to take things slowly. But, at the same time, with gloved hands moving all over my chest and pulling at my pants, it's as though he's savoring every moment of it.

"Yo, Alfred."

England moves down to kissing and biting my neck-and holy Jesus fucking fuck I didn't think my neck could be so incredibly sensitive and that this kind of thing would feel so fantastic.

"Alfred, are you listening to meeeeeee?"

I look up to see... Jesus fucking Christ. John Egbert. John fucking Egbert is floating above me, in his God Tier outfit. Could this get any weirder? I have a country playing with me in a super erotic and brilliant feeling way, and now John Egbert of Homestuck is floating above me looking amused.

"Hey Alfred, you look a little uncomfortable. Let me help you out a little bit."

There's a bit of a creaking noise and time seems to speed up, going all the way through to the end of a fucking awesome sexual experience up until England and I are laying together on a cot. John's still floating there, with a permanent amused expression. He motions for me to follow him, and I do tossing on my shirt, pants, belt, sock, shoes and bomber jacket. He takes me around and out of the little military encampment until we reach a lake that has the sky reflected in it. We're sitting in front of the lake now, sort of looking at the sky, and it's a little... strange to see John out of the Homestuck realm.

"So. How are you doing in the dream world Alfred?"

"Pardon? What do you mean by 'dream world'?"

"You know, the dream world, where all of your dreams take place. This just happens to be a special version of it, where are our your interests and wishes come together to make an alternate universe of sorts."

I play with my belt a little, and try to digest this in a way so it makes sense. "So, you're saying that I'm dreaming."

"Yessir."

"And, this is an alternate universe."

"Yep."

"But, how exactly did this alternate universe come into being exactly? Does it have something to do with an outside force? Or my subconscious?"

"Both." John looks at me and smiles. "It is a co-created effort. This isn't just confined to you, it's not so simple, and much bigger than even I can understand."

"Even when you're in God Tier?"

He laughs, and murmurs, "Yeah, even in God Tier."

This is incredibly confusing. I can understand this being a dream, but I don't really get what he means by this alternate universe and dream world stuff. I really am doing my best to understand, but it doesn't make much sense. "You're awfully small you know."

"Pardon?"

"You're awfully small in the grand scheme of things, Alfred," he sighs, and looks back up to the sky, "You need to understand that you can't stay with Arthur Kirkland forever."

"What? What do you mean I can't! I want to and I will."

"You need to go back to the States, Alfred F. Jones."

"But... Why?" I'm really quite confused now. But, I mean, I can't just leave Arthur. That wouldn't be fair. John sighs again, and has a deep, mystifying look.

"You need to go back after you finish high school. Then, go to college, work your way up into a good position in a business, and then, you may or may not be able to meet Arthur again."

"John," I turn to look at him with his strange blue hoodie, and glasses that are the same shape as mine. "How exactly, do I tell Arthur?"

"You don't. Wait until you get through with your senior year. Then, when you get ready to go home and go to college, tell him. Try to be gentle about it though."

He stands up, and brushes off his pants, then looks down at me sadly, "You want to get back to Arthur now don't you?"

"Of course I do, I have since the moment I got here."

"Go back to England, lay down, and go to sleep. When you wake up, you'll be home. Good bye, Alfred F. Jones."

"Good bye, John Egbert." And just like that he disappears.

I do exactly what he tells me to do, go back to the camp, find the tent we were in, and crawl onto the cot next to England. I've been so incredibly confused that it doesn't take me long to fall asleep.

And perhaps, I should take John's words to heart.

* * *

This update is a bit shorter than the last few, but I figure it was a good place to stop. All mysterious like. I hope, that you all have thoroughly enjoyed this update, and won't kill me for my lack of knowledge on Homestuck, and my strange Hetastuck dream I conjured. For a while there, I was as confused as Alfred *laughs* I will probably start working on the next update within an hour or so, and definitely start naming the chapters. I am looking forward to seeing you all again very soon, hopefully in the next few days with a longer update next time as well. Hasta la pasta my evil muffins~


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